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Wednesday 3 June 2020

1922, A Radio First for Castleknock College




While the medium of radio developed quickly around the world, in Ireland censorship rules and military disruption caused by the War of Independence and then the Civil War, stifled the development of radio broadcasting in Ireland. The ownership of transmitters was banned and amateurs operated in fear of arrest. Some though did try to develop radio especially as it moved from Morse point to point communications to mass communications with wireless telephony. Many of those who tried to advance the growing interest in radio were the clergy who found safety behind the walls of parochial houses and monasteries.

One of those was Father John Ryan CM who taught at Blackrock College and at one time had Eamon DeValera as a pupil. On Wednesday April 5th 1922, he is credited for having organised the first radio broadcast specifically dedicated to an Irish audience. For that unique occasion, the event did not take place in Blackrock College on the southside of Dublin but northside of the city at Castleknock College. The broadcast caused quite a stir in the media and while it was an Irish audience that would be entertained the broadcast itself came from Paris.

 Over a hundred students and interested amateurs filled the concert hall of the Castleknock College. The lecture began at seven o’clock and according to a journalist who was in attendance
‘The Reverend lecturer " tuned up" and throughout the hall we heard " dot and dash " from Clifden, Paris, Nauen (Germany), Karlsborg (Sweden), Warsaw, Moscow, and from ships at sea.
A gentleman in the audience actually took down and de-coded some of the messages there and then.’

Ninety minutes later the Reverend nervously checked him watch and then with some small adjustments to his equipment on stage, that had been supplied by the dealers Dixon and Hempenstall. The audience at Castleknock College were now so quiet you could hear a pin drop, were suddenly startled and astounded in equal measure.

‘Suddenly there crept through the hall sweet notes of a French soprano singing " La Patrie" - A pause - Now a baritone's full notes resounded in an appealing ballad. - Another pause - An orchestra playing most tunefully delighted our ears. - Another pause - Once again the soprano sang, concluding with the strains of "La Marseilles." Then a gentleman's voice was heard to say "Bon Soir mesdames, Bon Soir, messieurs'.

Imagine our amazement. We had heard a concert transmitted by wireless telephony. Then came the explanation. Father Ryan, having often heard music by telephony at his station at Blackrock, conceived the daring idea of writing to General Ferrie, at the Eiffel Tower Wireless Station, Paris, to ask for the transmission of some music by telephony at 8.30 p.m. on April 5, as he would lecture on "Wireless" that evening to the Castleknock students.’



The Paris concerts were broadcast on 2600 metres, normally aired in the afternoons as amateur listeners on crystal sets listeners to music concerts from Marconi’s experimental station at Chelmsford, 2MT, in the evenings. Ryan believed that relaying an English broadcast might incite passions after the recent end to the War of Independence. He contacted Gustave Auguste FerriĆ© (19 November 1868 – 16 February 1932), who was a renown French radio pioneer and inventor and appointed a general in the French army. In 1903 he proposed setting aerials on the Eiffel Tower for long-range radiotelegraphy. Under his direction a transmitter was set up in the tower, and its effective range had increased from an initial 400 km (250 mi) to 6,000 km (3,700 mi) by 1908. He would later develop mobile transmitters for military units which would be used by the French military during the First World War. It was fortuitous that the Paris Station based at the Eiffel Tower had significantly increased its transmitter power one month earlier. Father Ryan requested of the French General that the Paris station would organise and broadcast a special broadcast for the Irish audience at Castleknock College who were about to enter the Irish radio history books.


Paris sang to Castleknock, and Castleknock applauded enthusiastically.



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