Irish Broadcasting History & Hall of Fame: 2024

In 2023 Ireland began a decade of centenaries in Irish radio history. After the 1923 launch of Ireland’s first yet short lived licensed radio station, 2BP, in September 1924 the first permanent radio station of the island of Ireland opened. This is that story…..

2BE, the Launch of Belfast Radio in 1924

“that it will not now be necessary for broadcasting station to arranged in the Free State. There will one in Belfast from which the programmes can heard free any charge. Let us hope the station in question will broadcast some really educational programmes”[1]

These words were the thoughts of a radio listener-in from Belfast in 1924. After the openings of stations on the British mainland, in 1924 it was Belfast’s turn to join the growing list of stations under the control of the British Broadcasting Company[2]. In March 1924, the BBC announced that station call sign 2BE broadcasting on 435m medium wave would take to the airwaves later that year. The BBC were already available in London (2LO), Birmingham (5IT), Bournemouth (5BM), Cardiff (5WA), Manchester (5ZY), Newcastle (5NO), Glasgow (5SC) and Aberdeen (2BD).

The opening of either new regional stations or relay stations for the BBC slowed as the company struggled to find new and clear frequencies. On March 7^TH 1924 it was announced by the British Broadcasting Company as it was still known as that the Belfast station had been given ‘official sanction’ and that the wavelength for listeners in Ulster was 435m medium wave. The Belfast Telegraph reported,

‘The power the station will kilowatts and a wave-length metre of 435 will be used. The call sign will be 2BE. A site has yet been found for the station, but the company hopes that it will be opened from two to three months’ time.’

By the end of March, Harold Bishop[3] the assistant chief engineer arrived in Belfast to lay the groundwork for the new station.

The studios and offices of 2BE, were to be located at 31 Linenhall Street, a central position in the city, while the aerial and transmitting plant to be erected at the Corporation Electricity Station at the East Bridge Street. The aerial was of the" sausage " type, and the ends were supported by the two tall smoke-stacks of the generating station, the halyards already being in position.

In 1919, 31 Linenhall Street was sold by Linen company of Daniel Currell and Sons.

It was purchased by British Thomson Houston Limited a manufacturer of wireless valves. The company also had offices as Suffolk Street in Dublin. It would be their upper floors that would be used as the studios and offices for 2BE.

According to T.P. Allen in Popular Wireless Weekly

“The space now occupied by the offices and studio was originally one large flat, and this had to be divided off into the various rooms necessary for the staff. The studio itself is approached through a winding corridor, which divides the various offices, all of which are situated on the second floor and above the B.T.H. Company's Belfast premises. The corridors are liberally placarded with requests for silence, and a waiting -room is provided for artistes; those wishing to listen -in while waiting their turn may do so. The studio is treated in the same way as those " across the Channel," and is draped and carpeted, and has a canopy of light fabric, all with the idea of reducing echo. As a matter of fact, the draping was not finished when the station commenced its present experimental transmissions.”

In advance of the station opening Walter Montagu Douglas Scott was appointed as the Station Director. He was the cousin the Duke of Buccleuch, educated at Eton University, and described as widely travelled as both a traveller and a diplomat. An accomplished linguist, he was also keenly interested in musical and dramatic art and declared upon his appointment that he hoped to make making the Belfast station one of the most successful in the BBC system. Scottish born Edmund Thompson was appointed as his assistant. He had been educated at Edinburgh University. A Territorial officer, at the age of 21 was promoted to Major, He was in charge of a siege battery in France during the First World War and was awarded the Military Cross in 1919. Local man Godfrey Brown was appointed the musical director with his assistant named as Thomas Corrin.

After a week of nightly tests for one hour, on Monday September 15^th, 2BE went on the air. The first voice to be heard on the airwaves was that of twenty four year old William Tyrone Guthrie. Guthrie was born in 1900 at Tunbridge Wells, Kent in England. He had just joined the BBC and his later career would be producing plays for radio and as a theatrical director. His second cousin was the Hollywood actor Tyrone Power.

The introduction of ‘Hello Hello this is 2BE, the Belfast station of the British Broadcasting Company’ got programming under way at seven o’clock. The Orchestra then played the National Anthem but shortly after the airwaves fell silent as a technical hitch put 2BE off the air for thirty minutes. The reaction to the first night was mixed. Former Director General of the BBC Tony Hall recounted on the nineth anniversary of the opening of 2BE that one writer to the newspaper in Belfast said that,

“I see from the papers that there is a large increase in the sales of radio sets. After last night’s programme I am selling my set too.”

The station’s director Douglas Scott spoke to his audience just before the close down,

“Belfast calling. Thanks to the efficiency and energy of our engineering staff, the Belfast Broadcasting station is established and should have commenced working at 7 this evening but owing to a technical fault we were delayed until 7.30. The official opening of this station by his Grace the Governor of Northern Ireland will take place in October upon a date which will be published later.

Our future endeavours will be to offer all our listeners an attractive programme. In all the British broadcasting stations there is a common keenness to offer the best. The wavelength to this station has been fixed in conjunction with the Northern Government authorities, also having regard to the wave-lengths of our existing stations. We trust that everybody will be satisfied and that this opportunity to claim indulgence for any sins of omission or commission and we also wish to express our hope that those listening at Bellevue this evening will have enjoyed the programme’.

This is the Radio Times listing of the first week of 2BE.

The BBC’s assistant controller for Scotland Millar Craig and the BBC’s chief Engineer Peter Eckersley were both in studio for the first night’s broadcast. The Freeman’s Journal reported listening-in to the first night’s broadcast but started their article with less enthusiasm than listeners north of the border.

“The first words spoken from the new broadcasting station in Belfast last night reached Dublin in a very English accent. It was the precise, careful modulation of Southern standard English, made familiar to listeners in this country by the official announcers from the English stations. I had just been listening through Glasgow to the sturdy accent of the Clyde and had expected from Belfast the accent of the Lagan, which, despite all our differences would have been more welcome than the intonation of the foreigner.

But just at present Belfast is more English, than the English themselves, and perhaps the choice of an announcer was motived by that consideration. Another straw showing the present direction of the Belfast wind was the fact that while the British, stations are content to finish their programmes with God Save the King, Belfast began its first programme with what most of its inhabitant’s regard as that good party tune.”

Not everything went smoothly in that first week, the Irish Sunday Independent on Sunday 21^st reported, Edward Dillon wrote,

“I tuned in the other night to the transmission from the newly completed Belfast station. Sure enough, shortly after seven 2BE came through with almost startling clearness and called, though with a very English accent, "Hello, everybody Belfast calling! This is the Belfast station of the British Broadcasting Company”, who are opening one station a month and then " Silence . . . And more silence. Had the station been blown up? Had the chief engineer started to discuss the Boundary Question with the Director of Programmes, with unhappy results to the microphone? Anyway, tune as we might not a sound from 2BE could we pick up after.”

After a month on the air, the station was officially launched on Friday October 24^th at a major event and outside broadcast from the Ulster Hall. Hundreds gathered in the hall, while thousands listened across Ulster and many more turned in as the opening was simultaneously broadcast across the BBC network.

The band of the Seaforth Highlanders provided the music including the playing of the national anthem that announced the arrival of the Governor of Northern Ireland, The Duke of Abercorn[4]. Apart from the Duke’s speech, there were also speeches delivered by Lord Gainford, chairman of the BBC, Sir James Craig, the Northern Ireland Prime Minister, Sir William Turner, the Belfast Lord Mayor who acted as MC for the event and Dr. Livingstone, Vice Chancellor of Queens University. Also in attendance was John Reith the chairman of the British Broadcasting Company.

Each of the speeches were received with sustained applause but the biggest cheer and roar was reserved for the end of the night when the news bulletin was relayed from London stating that the then self-styled President of the Irish Republic and commander of the losing side in the Irish Civil War, Eamon DeValera, had been arrested in Newry.

At the end of the gala evening it was Antrim born Archibald McKinstry, a director at the British Broadcasting Company through his role at Metropolitan Vickers, that motioned a vote of thanks to the Governor and his wife Lady Abercorn.

In his speech Craig humorously intimated that the reason that the station was known as 2BE was that the station was in the Second city of the British Empire. This was a titled often spoken of as Dublin prior to the War of Independence.

In March 1935 the station was renamed as the Northern Ireland Regional Service. After the Second World War it was renamed the Northern Ireland Home Service and today 2BE is known as BBC Radio Ulster.

[1] Radio Notes Belfast Newsletter July 1^st 1924

[2] It did not become the British Broadcasting Corporation until 1927

[3] 1900 – 1983, Bishop was awarded a CBE for his services to broadcasting

[4] James Albert Edward Hamilton, 3rd Duke of Abercorn (30^th November 1869 – 12^th September 1953