The Radio Galaxy Story Through The Anoraks Ireland Donation

 

For the past three years we have been collecting, curating and digitizing a large collection of pirate radio material which will be housed, stored and made available for future generations of radio students in The Irish Pirate Radio Archive at Dublin City University. Why is this important? Why should you donate your memorabilia? The golden age of pirate radio from the mid seventies to the new Wireless Telegraphy Act of 1988 has had a profound affect on the Irish radio landscape and captures a period of social change and history. It's a snapshot in time. Ireland has a long association with pirate radio from the very early days of the state and thousand of people have been involved over the decades and each of those pirate stations produced rate cards, letterheads, photographs, commercial merchandise, car stickers and even employee contracts and we would like you to consider donating them to the Archives to build up a truly accurate picture of how important pirate radio has been. There also has been thousands of hours of pirate radio broadcasts taped and these too tell a story from the on-air personality, the music played and even the advertising broadcast. Each tells a vital art of the story and the historical significance of free radio. The tape recordings also tell an integral and vital part of the story and separately are currently being digitized and preserved by pirate.ie and radiowaves.fm. Ireland has had a unique association with illegal broadcasting. 

To illustrate the importance and scope of the collection, the following is part of the incredible donation made by Paul Davidson of Anoraks Irelands to the Archives which included thousands of tapes, thousands of photographs of the pirate stations across the country and multiple boxes of memorabilia and archives. These are the photographs and recordings of Tony Boylan's Radio Galaxy.                       

The Story..

Dubliner Tony Boylan was a pioneer of pirate broadcasting and operated a number of stations throughout the fifties right through to the 1980's. Tony began experimenting with transmitters in the mid-forties opening a station called The Killeen Road Home Service broadcasting on 200m medium wave named after his home in Rathmines. This station closed in 1950 when the Boylan family moved and the new station became the Waddlade Road Home Service. His stations would later be known as Radio 200, Radio Laxy and famously Radio Galaxy which Tony operated until the mid-1980’s when Tony and his wife left Ireland for retirement on the Isle of Man, where they both passed away.

 

Radio Galaxy on 217mMW was known as ‘the station of the stars’ the station continued in various guises including Radio Laxy on 220mMW which was closed by the Department of Posts and Telegraphs in 1955. Some of the other station names used by Tony Boylan included Radio 200 and Moonlight Radio on 259m MW. (From a 'Century of Irish Radio 1900-2000 book)

The following is a selection of photographs taken for Anoraks Ireland in 1986 and feature Tony operating his home based pirate station Radio Galaxy

Notice he used reel to reel tape to play some of his older recordings

Tony operating his station. In the top right photograph you will see the brown paper sleeves on the 78's he played on his station, some dating back to the 1920's. His gave away his large record collection, some of which can be seen behind him in the bottom left photograph, when he was moving to Douglas in the Isle of Man.

The interior of Radio Galaxy including a red light bulb to indicate when the station was live of the air. The tapes were played through a stereo radio/cassette machine seen below the clock.

To hear Radio Galaxy's final broadcast

LISTEN HERE TO RADIO GALAXY'S FINAL BROADCAST

To read more about Tony and Radio Galaxy read here

pirate.ie Tony Boylan Archives

Radiowaves.fm Radio Galaxy

DXArchive has press clippings and recordings of Radio Galaxy

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

If you have any pirate radio archives and you wish to donate them to The Irish Pirate Radio Archive @DCU, pirate.ie or radiowaves.fm get in touch with an email to : theirishpirateradioarchive@gmail.com

WHAT WE WANT?

Any memorabilia or tapes relating to Irish pirate radio from any year, in any county, in any part of the island of Ireland. Memorabilia can consist of stickers, press clippings, photographs, playlists, merchandise, company letters or just personal memories. 

WHAT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO GIVE YOUR COLLECTION AWAY?

If you wish to loan a personal collection of memorabilia or tapes to us, we can digitize them and then return the collection to you. This will preserve your collection for years to come. 

CAN I DO IT ANNONYMOUSLY?

Yes, there is absolutely no requirement for your name to be made public and we will sign an agreement defining that then you donate. You can also have your name announced when a collection is donated. We will also apprise you of how the digitizing is progressing. 

In the words of Radio Galaxy's door poster, 

HELP FREE RADIO

THANKS

Simon Young, A Superstar of the Airwaves

 

When Thomas Meade was born into a hard working Finglas family, little did he know the impact this young man would make on the world of Irish radio and television. After a brief stint working in a gift shop on Nassau Street in Dublin’s city centre, the young Meade was already developing a new passion.

 

As a sixteen year old teenager, Meade earned his first eleven pounds as a DJ at a local gig in Cabra and it set him on the road as a broadcaster with wonderful talent emanating from his deep voice. He earned a reputation in the nightclubs around the city and became the club jock at Annabel’s in the Burlington Hotel. The ‘American Disco’ at Sloopy’s nightclub was another popular avenue for the young DJ. In the late Seventies and early eighties, the route to the airwaves was through pirate radio and Simon Young, as he was now known, found himself on ARD and Big D Radio, two of Dublin’s premier pirate stations. In those stations Simon found kindred spirits on the airwaves like Gerry Ryan, Ian Dempsey and Tony Fenton.

 

After sending in numerous tape auditions to RTE (that was the way a DJ introduced himself then) eventually he found himself in August 1982 as a stand in for Gerry Ryan on RTE Radio 2, another DJ who was a product of the pirate era. He would remain at RTE appearing on both radio and television for the next two decades. He proved extremely popular with the listening public. He became a popular guest on the popular ‘The Den’ on RTE 2TV with the extraordinary Dustin the Turkey. He would stand in for presenters Ian Dempsey and Ray D’Arcy on numerous occasions. In 1995 on RTE TV he presented ‘Pay the Price’ with co-host Roscha Murphy but Simon also dabbled in acting. In 1998 he made an appearance as the character ‘Rafferty’ in the hit BBC drama/comedy series Ballykissange[1]l set in County Wicklow. In April 1998 he appeared on stage at the Olympia with Brendan O’Carroll’s creation Mrs Brown. O’Carroll and Simon had worked together on pirate station ARD.

 

In 1999 with the departure of Bill O’Donovan as 2FM head, Simon found himself sidelined. Following the death of his father in 1999 and the break up of his marriage, Simon was plagued with mental health issues, which he both addressed and received treatment for[2]. By his own admission he spent almost four and a half years[3] in hospital being treated for his mental issues. By 2002 he had departed RTE and began working as a freelance broadcaster and Voice Over artist[4].

 

Simon passed away aged 62 years on October 31^st 2021 and was survived by his wife Phyl, children Holly and Nathan, brother Glen who is a well known author having penned books including ‘Resurrection Day’. Simon was a talented presenter who brought joy to those who listened and will be missed most importantly by his immediate family and friends but by a wider public who enjoyed his banter, music and talent.

Dustin’s twitter account said upon his passing,

‘I hope there’s a big aul garden in heaven he can tell people to get outta’

 'Ar dheis Dé go raibh a h'anam dílis'

---

[1] BBC 1996 - 2001

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC96O88xkZU

[3] TV 3 Interview with Martin King

[4] Linkedin

Kandy Radio, Mayo - Irish Pirate Radio Archives

As some of our team head West towards Galway/Mayo and South to Cork from November 3rd - 6th 2021, the importance of gathering the archives of Irish pirate radio can be illustrated here with archives donated by Anoraks Ireland to the Irish Pirate Radio Archive at Dublin City University relating to Kandy Radio. 

If you have memorabilia, tapes, stickers, mugs or pirate radio archival material relating to pirate radio in Galway or Mayo and would like to donate it to the Archive at DCU, please email theirishpirateradioarchive@gmail.com for further information. 

A 1986 Questionnaire created for Anoraks Ireland

Pictures taken by Paul Davidson of Anoraks Ireland on 26th November 1986

A follow up questionnaire completed in 1987

For further reading

Kandy Radio on pirate.ie

Kandy Radio on the DX Archive

Kandy Radio on radiowaves.fm