In a smaller global world, rural Ireland was a close-knit social community and the creation of town and village festivals brought locals together along with returning diaspora and visitors. From the 1950’s onwards and with Radio Eireann centrally located in Dublin, many festivals created their own ‘radio station’ to play music, provide information and play requests from at locals at home and abroad. These early ‘stations’ were not transmitter driven but a wired loudspeaker system erected throughout the town or village. But one festival in the early 1970’s would take that idea one step further.
The main claim to fame of
Bandon in west county Cork is that a former pupil of Bandon Grammar School,
Graham Norton, has found fame across the Irish Sea on British TV and radio.
However, in 1969, while the young Norton was attending school in the town, the
Bandon Junior Chamber of Commerce in the County Cork village decided to create the
first Bandon Week in July 1970. It attracted an influx of visitors from the
Cork region and many travelled home for the first time in many years especially
from Britain to be part of the festival. The first year was a huge success. In
July 1972[1] there was a new departure
when Radio Bandon came on the air broadcasting on 198m medium wave each
evening for an hour from 6pm. Over the following years, information on this
unique and popular pirate radio station, as it was never licensed or ever
applied for a license, appeared in pre-publicity for both the festival and the
station. According to John O’Mahony[2], who was one of the first
voices heard on the station in 1972, Radio Bandon utilised an ex-BBC emergency
radio transmitter[3]
and that it had a radius of twelve miles around the village[4]. It was brought into Bandon
bit by bit by John Smith, a former BBC outside broadcast engineer who had
retired to Bandon. He added,
‘Domie[5] O’Brien was a member of
the Bandon Junior Chamber at the time and he was the driving force behind the
radio station. John Smith set up the transmitter in his house on Newstown Road.
We all helped. We stood two post offices poles to hold the aerial which
consisted of 150lbs of cooper wire. I was a DJ in a mobile disco roadshow and
so I had access to the equipment and a great record collection. The studios
were located in a number of places with the transmitter remaining at John’s
house.’
The studios were initially located in John Smith’s house and after in Domie O’Brien’s house, O’Donovan’s Grocery, the Bandon town hall and in John O’Mahony’s own home on Watergate Street. O’Mahony recalled how the station received hundreds of requests with many dropped into his house of Eric Hickey’s shop.
After a successful series of broadcasts in 1972, Radio Bandon was back for 1973 but in 1974 their plans were almost derailed. It was reported in the Cork Examiner that the operators of the station were informed that ‘if the station went on air, the situation would be embarrassing’ and pressure from the Gardai and the Department of Post and Telegraphs tasked with policing the airwaves, kept the station off the air.
Undeterred the station
was back in 1975 and provided a major coup. Their first broadcast that year was
a recording of the opening ceremony speech delivered by the government’s
minister for Transport, and Cork TD, Peter Barry. A Minister’s speech relayed
on a pirate radio station in his own county and yet the station continued. In 1976
the station continued, broadcasting from 6.30pm – 7pm with ‘up to the minute
bulletins on Festival events including reports on the golfer of the week
competition’.
Emboldened by their success, the station increased activity in 1977 and was now broadcasting on 206m medium wave, ‘strategically two metres away from Radio Luxembourg’[6]. The festival committee had cultivated close links with the Bandon society living and working in the London area and messages were recorded at the annual dinner of the Association which were returned to Ireland for broadcast. In 1977, these greeting were broadcast on St Patrick’s Day with a special broadcast. In June that year the Eucharistic procession through the town and the accompanying religious ceremonies were broadcast for those who were ill or unable to attend in person. In July Radio Bandon was back on the air for the festival while a new departure was the Christmas Day broadcasts from 5-6pm with greetings from abroad and also on St Stephens Day from 3-6pm.[7] From 1978 onwards Radio Bandon broadcast each day of the festival from 6.30pm for an hour, thus avoiding any clashes with locals tuning into news and weather forecasts on Radio Eireann.
In 1980, one of those on
air on Radio Bandon was visiting Massachusetts Democratic State
representative Marie Howe, whose father had emigrated from Bandon in the
1920’s. Alas 1983 would be the last year of Radio Bandon and the station
would be replaced by another pirate station, WKLR (West Cork Local Radio), who
would continue to use the decommissioned BBC transmitter. The reason for the
closure was explained by Dave Heffernan, the man behind WKLR from 1983 until
the pirate radio closedowns in December 1988.
‘One day in the middle of one its more popular programmes where the DJ repeatedly gave out the phone number there was a phone call from Cork Airport. You need to close down that station and cease broadcasting immediately the official from Cork airport insisted. Oh, but we can’t do that in the middle of our annual festival came the reply. Well, if you don’t shut down immediately, you’re going to have a Jumbo Jet landing in South Main Street Bandon because it’s locked onto your homing beacon. Needless to say, Radio Bandon Management made the right decision and choose the greater good and that was the end of Radio Bandon. '[8]
In speaking with me, John O’Mahony recounted that
after Radio Bandon he worked briefly for WKLR also in Bandon and for the Cork
Broadcasting Company (CBC) in the city.
‘I did some broadcasting with CBC Radio in Cork City on a Saturday morning. The pirate station moved around a lot to avoid detection. I joined the Department of Posts and Telegraphs (in 1974) as an installer never realising that the Department would be the people to road the pirates to confiscate the equipment. One Saturday they raided the premises on McCurtain Hill when I was on the air and I had to through jump at least two gardens to make my getaway.’
To see pictures of the BBC transmitter used by Radio
Bandon see the WKLR history at the DX Archive[9]
and for further information of WKLR read Radiowaves.fm[10]
[1]
The Southern Star
[2]
Interview with the author
[3]
The Cork Examiner 1977
[4]
The Cork Examiner 1974
[5]
Dominick O’Brien
[6]
The Evening Echo
[7]
The Southern Star
[8] http://worship.ie/daves-early-radio-days-the-story-of-wklr-chap-1/
[9] http://dxarchive.com/ireland_a_to_z_irish_pirates_wklr_bandon.html
[10] http://radiowaves.fm/ire/database/wklr/
If you would like to support my work in preserving and presenting the history of Irish radio and archive as much broadcasting history as I can, then for the price of a cup of coffee you can financially support the work at https://ko-fi.com/irishbroadcastinghistory.
Thank you. (Use the button at the top of the page to support)
In the couple of weeks we will be covering some other festival pirate stations including Radio Clara and Portarlington Festival Radio. If you are visiting Bandon, why not tune in to local station West Cork FM.
Sources
The Irish (Cork) Examiner
The Southern Star
The Evening Echo
Google Maps
'Bandon Town I Love You' facebook Community
John O'Mahony (Bandon)
The BBC Archives
The National Archives
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