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.
‘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 Ferrié (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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