The Irish Language Pirate Radio Stations

 

When pirate.ie (Read Here) posted on their excellent website about the opening of Irish language pirate radio station Saor Raidio Chonamara (Free Radio Connemara) in April 1970, as activists campaigned for an Irish language radio station, it brought to mind another attempt at Irish language pirate radio in Dublin in 1979.

Radio Na Phobail (translates as 'Radio of the Public') opened on October 16^th 1979 broadcasting on 200mMW and in a blaze of publicity. The Irish language station was operated by Conradh na Gaeilge from a garage on the southside of the city. Conradh na Gaeilge is a social and cultural organisation which promotes the Irish language in Ireland and worldwide. The organisation was founded in 1893 with Douglas Hyde was its first president. Hyde would officially open Ireland’s first official radio station 2RN in 1926 and would also serve as the first President of Ireland.  

Initially the station only broadcast for a and hour each evening between 9pm and 10pm with announcements and music before this was increased to a couple of hours each evening. According to Conradh at the launch they said that the station had been set up,

‘Primarily as a protest against the continuing failure of RTE to provide an adequate service in Irish on radio and TV and to scale down the Anglo-American domination on RTE programming’.

They said that the station would be staffed by 20 members of Conradh na Gaeilge and the station was financed by several branches of the movement. They revealed in the press that the 50watt transmitter had cost nearly £1,000. The transmitter and much of the ancillary equipment was purchased from a defunct station in Galway city.

The station operator said that they would not be relying on advertising, as it was advertising that was forcing RTE to broadcast Anglo-American programmes and they saw that as anti-national.  and that the cost of running the station would be borne by the formation of a ‘Club Tacaiochta’ or ‘Support Club’.

 

Unfortunately, the station suffered from low power and technical setbacks which included frequency changes to 245m and later 215m. Raidio na Phobail had disappeared from the airwaves by the summer of 1981. Dublin would not get a Irish language only station until 1991 when Radio na Life was licensed initially on a temporary license but then acquired a full time license. Conradh na Gaeilge got back into the radio business with the launch of Radio RiRa.

 You can hear some of Radio Na Phobail test transmissions here:

 https://soundcloud.com/user-111680633/radio-an-phobail-tests?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

 In April 1970, when that group of activists began illegally broadcasting from a caravan near Rosmuc in County Galway, Raidio Saor Chonamara was a publicity stunt that shone a light on the demand for more Irish language on the airwaves to cater for the Gaeltacht areas of Ireland. The stunt worked as two years later Radio Na Gaeltachta took to the airwaves. Originally broadcasting solely to the Gaeltachta areas on the west coast of Ireland, in 1973 with the addition on an FM Network, RnaG went nationwide and continues successfully today.

 

But how far has Irish language broadcasting some. An interesting study of Irish language radio was conducted by John Walsh of NUIG and can be read HERE. There were a number of pirate operations in Dublin before Raidio Na Life came on the air in 1991 as a temporary license and a full time license was granted in 1993 and broadcasts on 106.4mhz FM. But traditional radio is now augmented by stations available online only through apps like Tune-In and DAB.

The stations available today are

Raidio Na Gaeltachta available on FM - online

Raidio na Life on FM - Radio Garden & radio.ie

Raidio Ri-Ra – Online – radio.ie - Radio Garden and the occasional temporary license from the BAI. It is a chart music station that broadcasts links in Irish. The station is operated as an arm of Conradh na Gaeilge who operated the pirate station Raidio na Phobail back in the 1980’s

Ceol FM. Available online through TuneIn and Radio Garden There are a range of sub channels available from Ceol FM including Ceol FM Energetic and Ceol FM Soothing

Raidio Siamsa available on radio garden or through its own app. According to their website

Radio Siamsa is an Irish online radio station broadcasting Irish traditional music from Dublin. We broadcast only Irish traditional music mainly Irish tunes, interspersed with occasional songs.

Saor Raidio available on FreeDAB, the pirate DAB system with scrolling text announcing it was ‘ar fud na hEireann’

 

North of the border in Belfast, Radio Failte first went on the air in the spring of 1988 with studios located in the Conway Mills complex on the Falls Road, Belfast. In January 1989, the station announced it was leaving the airwaves to pursue a license from the authorities. The station was back on the airwaves illegally broadcasting from New Year’s Day January 1993 and now located in the McAdam O’Fiach Cultural centre on the Falls Road.  but they received a RSL (Restricted Service License) from the radio authority (now known as Ofcom). They were allowed to broadcast for 28 days from Monday June 7th 1993.

Listeners were able to switch on to the opening broadcast at 7am and early birds enjoyed the lulling strains of Irish singer Albert Fry with his rendition of a Donegal folk song. A permanent licence granted 15 September 2006 and the station was officially opened by the then President of Ireland and Belfast native Mary McAleese. In October 2018 the station moved to a state-of-the-art new building on the junction of the Falls Road and the Westlink motorway designed by McGurk architects

https://www.rte.ie/archives/2018/0531/967293-raidio-failte-belfast/

Conway Mills was the home to another Belfast station that broadcast predominately in the Irish Language. Féile FM was a community radio station  based at Conway Mill in Belfast’s Gaeltacht Quarter. The station first went on air in July 1996 on a 28-day RSL, operating for the west Belfast community festival Feile na Phobail. Within two years, Féile FM began broadcasting for two four-week periods each year, providing a build-up to Feile na Phobail and St Patrick’s Day.

Over the first nine years, Féile FM broadcast on 106.2FM. This frequency changed to 107.7 FM for the radio broadcast in July/August 2005. Although the station was broadcasting from various venues, it returned to Conway Mill in February 2004 to a purpose-built studio with a full studio and modern equipment and broadcast online. In October 2005, Féile FM was granted a full-time community radio license by Ofcom. After the period of two years, Féile FM was granted permission to broadcast throughout the year as opposed to its previous restrictions on broadcasting only in the run-up to St. Patrick's Day and the West Belfast Festival. This allowed the station to provide a full-time community radio service to the entire city of Belfast. By 2007, Feile FM was on 103.2mhz but the recession forced the station to close at 4pm on Friday 25 March 2011 owing to financial difficulties and increasing overhead costs.

Sources

The Irish Independent

The Sunday Press

pirate.ie

radiowaves.fm

Radio Failte 

BAI

OfCom