The First Ladies of Irish Radio, Renee Flynn & Victoria Clarke Barry

For hundreds of thousands of viewers, RTE’s ‘Dancing With The Stars’ is a must watch as professional dancers, paired with celebrities attempt to impress the Judges including Lorraine Barry. Her family have had their talents showcased on the Irish broadcasting landscape for longer than you might think.

In a predominately male dominated world, radio in its infancy had two Irish female pioneers and after almost 100 years, it is time to celebrate their contribution to Irish broadcasting history. First up is Renee Flynn, a soprano that has appeared on every radio station to broadcast in Ireland up to the Second World War. In January 1926 Ms. Flynn appeared in 2RN but this was not her first visit in front on the radio microphone. In December 1925 she had sung on the stage of the La Scala Theatre off O’Connell Street which was relayed to the nearby studios of 2RN and aired live as a test broadcast for the new station. 2RN officially became the Irish Free State’s station on January 1^st 1926. But even her December broadcast was not her first as she became one of the first women to appear on Irish radio when she broadcast on 2BP.

2BP was a Marconi organised temporary station that was set up to prove to the new State’s Government the power of radio. (see our blog post on 2BP’s history). It’s studios and transmitter were located in the Royal Marine Hotel, Dun Laoghaire and a main listening-in station set up in the RDS during that years annual Horse Show. Renee sang into the microphone shortly after the station had been visited by President William T Cosgrave, who was originally visiting the hotel to meet with New York Supreme Court Judge, Daniel Cohalan.

Renee and her immense talent would enthrall theatre goers and radio audiences alike and she was in high demand. Not content with appearing on the first two licensed stations broadcasting from Dublin 2BP and 2RN, she appeared on the other Irish station 2BE singing with the Belfast Wireless Orchestra in April 1933. Earlier in 1931, she crossed the Irish Sea to London to appear on the London Regional Service before performing and recording with the BBC Symphony orchestra in 1936. Her broadcasting career in Ireland continued as 2RN was transformed into Radio Athlone in 1933 and when Athlone was renamed Radio Eireann in 1937, one of the first singers to appear on the station was Renee Flynn accompanied by the Irish Radio Orchestra.

The composer Vaughan Williams Requesting Renee for his recording

When the experimental 2BP was on air for those three days in August 1923, not only were listeners entertained by the velvet voice of Renee Flynn but also by the piano playing of Victoria Clarke Barry. Miss Clarke was the daughter of the well-known Dublin band leader, John Clarke Barry, who specialised in a new style of music at the time, American jazz. John Clarke Barry was immensely popular at home and abroad. A big family man, he and his wife would go onto have six sons and seven daughters. Victoria at times would step into replace her father as leader of the band when her father was indisposed. Later she would form her own touring band known as ‘The Lady Revellers’ and had a stellar career of her own. She had answered a newspaper advertisement seeking artists to appear on this new medium of radio in 1923 for the Marconi Company. As Victoria played the piano in front of the microphone at the Royal Marine Hotel, her father’s band entertained the visitors to the Horse Show itself in Ballsbridge. It must have been a great sense of pride in her father as he stood at the radio set in the RDS and heard his daughter entertaining over this new medium. Victoria featured in the band’s advertising and also accompanied her father and the band to Belfast to appear on 2BE in October 1923 after her inaugural appearance on radio on 2BP.

Victoria’s younger sister Billie would become the doyen of the Irish stage when in the sixties she set up an acting school to provide trained performers for the many theatre shows in Dublin and will be forever associated with the Gaeity Theatre. Billie’s own daughter Lorraine followed her mother’s passion into the theatre and dancing and was a perfect choice to be a judge on Dancing With the Stars when RTE purchased the rights of the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, known outside the UK as DWTS.