World Radio Day 2023 - A Unique Irish Radio Centenary

 

To celebrate UNESCO’s WorldRadio Day 2023, I am delighted to announce that in August we will be celebrating the Centenary of the launch of Ireland’s first licensed radio station 2BP. Broadcasting from studios and a transmitter in the Royal Marine Hotel, Dun Laoghaire, their first broadcast was on Tuesday August 14^th 1923. Just after 11a.m., a voice, ‘clear and distinct’ greeted listeners,

‘2BP speaking.’

A series of well known Dublin musicians and singers travelled to Dun Laoghaire to perform in front of a microphone for the first time in Ireland. The station was on in conjunction with the annual Dublin Horse Show at the RDS. Once the announcer, Louis Wilson from the Marconi Company had greeted listeners with ‘2BP speaking’, he introduced the first act.

‘The next item on the programme will be a piano forte solo by Miss Clarke Barry’.

 

This August a special commemorative night will be held in the Royal Marine Hotel on Saturday August 12^th, when a book on the history of the station will be launched and you can tune into a tribute radio station that will transport you back to the 1920’s. Further details of how to tune in, where to buy a signed copy of the book and how to get a ticket to attend the event in the Royal Marine Hotel will be published later in the year.

 

As we conclude The Decade of Centenaries and as a nation we emerged from the trials and tribulations of war, in 1923 we were about to embrace the new medium of radio.

Dublin's Pirate Radio Stations of the Early Twenties

The Irish Free State authorised 2RN to become the State’s official radio station and on January 1st 1926 it would officially go on air. Irish listeners, especially those on the East Coast, were already avid listeners to the new medium of radio. The sales of wireless sets had blossomed, with businesses like Hogan’s in Henry Street, Dublin supplying imported sets to those who could afford them. For those who could not afford them, a homemade crystal set gave them access to the airwaves. Listeners were entertained to broadcasts by London, Newcastle, Cardiff and Manchester amongst others. Following the formation of the new state, there was a divergence from the British laws that governed life in the country. Many of the laws were embraced by the Government including the British 1904 Wireless Telegraphy Act. Then in February 1924, the Irish Government implemented a licensing scheme for radio sets which was to be collected through the post office.

For many listeners south of the border, the arrival of 2BE in Belfast in September 1924 increased the urgency of having a Southern voice but there was division within Government circles as to whether the Free State’s venture should be commercially and privately run or State operated. In the end 2RN was a State body.

Many amateurs were building crystal sets to listen-in, but some inventive radio engineers were discovering that it was easy to turn their listening devices into transmitting devices. These amateurs were warned by newspaper columnists like ‘Radio Rex’ and ‘Jack Broadcaster’ that this was illegal and they should desist.

The so-called experimenters who were in actuality ‘pirate radio stations’ outside the law, were rebroadcasting British stations received on sophisticated sets in order that the amateur built crystal sets would be able to pick up a signal. This too was referred to in the newspaper columns with one declaring that,

‘Now I am informed that some people in what may be described as misplaced kindness are endeavouring to re-radiate received broadcast from their aerials to those of nearby crystal users. This is absolutely illegal and must on no account be attempted. You are not allowed to transmit. I shall be glad to assist those who try to locate offenders.’

On January 18^th 1923 in The Evening Telegraph, readers with an interest in radio was left in little doubt as to the legalities of ‘broadcasting’ rather than listening. It advised,

‘The position of the Free State in regard to the question of broadcasting, it may be taken for granted that broadly stated (1) Broadcasting of any kind is not legal yet in the Irish Free State. (2) That any instruments for the purpose of broadcasting are illegal. (3) That any attempt to bring in such instruments would be frustrated, the instruments of discord on-route would be sequestrated.’

Despite this information, an unusual pirate broadcaster turned out to be an attempted fraud and was exposed on the front page of the Evening Telegraph in November 1923. An authorised radio set dealer became aware of fraudsters who were selling sets at an unbelievably cheap price, purporting to receive all the British stations. He made an appointment to view the set and when the seller turned it on, he said that they were tuned into the Manchester station 2ZY. They listened to gramophone records and an announcer. After a period of listening the scam unravelled as the authorised dealer said that the announcers voice had a distinct Dublin accent. All was then revealed. The scammer and his confederate had set up a pirate transmitter nearby and was broadcasting the records and using a crude microphone to deliver the announcements pretending to be 2ZY. The ‘wireless set’ that they were trying to sell would barely be able to pick up a station that was just twenty miles from the receiver, it only contained a single value.  The uncover businessman remarked to the reporter that

‘The amusing part was that he had a rather clumsy contraption fitted up with the idea of humbugging innocent people into believing that the results obtained on his 'single valve set with a frame aerial were better than any of the demonstrations by the big wireless firms.’

He added

‘This kind of work is very good for experiments, but when it is done for the purpose of leading people to believe that they are listening to an actual station broadcasting, well it does general wireless work harm, first by making people suspicions and secondly by disappointing them by bad results.’

One pirate station seemed to make a genuine attempt to become the ‘Dublin station’ in advance of any officially sanctioned station. In May 1924, ‘The Grand Central Station Dublin’ was heard on the airwaves of Dublin on 390m medium wave. Reports said that on some of its broadcasts it suffered from interference from 2NO in Newcastle. The station broadcast from 9pm – 9.30pm. The ‘Dublin Studio’ as it deemed itself was located Northside of the city and introduced its pirate transmission with the announcement ‘calling Dublin, Glasnevin and everybody’. One writer to the newspapers wrote a critique of the broadcasts and offered some advice,

‘I would recommend that he is again whistling ‘Father O’Flynn’ for broadcasting that he should not blow directly into the microphone, as the result last night was more rushing wind that musical.’

The station carried on intermittently throughout the rest of the year with various reports appearing in trade magazines. They appeared to be coming from the one station although there were many experimenters as the frequency used was regularly on 390metres. In January 1925, The Radio Digest magazine in the United States reported in its ‘European Notes’ section that,

‘broadcasting is being carried out nightly from an unknown location near Dublin, Ireland, much to the annoyance of the Irish post office authorities who have been unsuccessful in their attempts to locate the illegal station’.

Pirate radio would be a thorn in the side of the authorities throughout every decade up to the present days with many pirate radio stations still taking to the air.

When A Radio Station Isn't A Radio Station

Through the pandemic of 2020, radio has proved to be vital in both delivering information and entertainment. Radio is still king. But as we hurtle through the early part of the twenty first century, the discussion as to what exactly the definition of radio is, has taken centre stage and led to differing opinions. For decades radio was delivered through a transmitter on various wavelengths and frequencies but today, what is described as ‘audio content delivery’, reaches our ears via analogue radio, digital radio, podcasts or online radio apps. But while we discuss today was a radio station is, that same discussion could have easily taken place in the late 1970’s.

Like today, the image we have of radio, is a studio with a presenter behind the microphone and the content then fed into a transmitter, to broadcast through the ether to your radio set. But in the 1970’s and early eighties radio came advertised in different forms, on air with everything except a transmitter, thus avoiding any law breaking and being deemed a pirate radio station.

There were numerous different varieties of operations that called themselves ‘radio’ but were not in the purest sense of the word.

Firstly there was the ‘Festival Radio Station’. In many rural towns and villages, the highlight of the social calendar was the local festival or fete, attracting both locals and tourists. These festivals ranged from accordion, Wild Boar, Trout, May Day, Christmas shopping to Cheese promotion festivals. The promoters of these festivals advertised a ‘radio station’ to entertain and inform but rather than transmitter based these stations like Omagh Festival Radio, Athlone’s and Carrick-on-Shannon’s celebration of the River Shannon and Radio Loughshinny were ‘broadcast’ via a public address systems attached to poles in the town or from speakers hung outside the festival office.

Secondly came the Hospital Radio stations. From the 1930’s hospitals installed speakers and later as technology evolved, bedside headphones so that patients could be entertained. Initially these systems piped Radio Eireann through the cables but then hospital specific studios were set up to broadcast within the hospital. These proved extremely popular with most major hospitals having their own ‘radio’ station. Hospital radio was extremely popular in Northern Ireland.

Next came school based radio stations. As the interest of the younger generation focussed on radio for entertainment and as transistors became more widespread, with these transistors often tuned into pirate radio stations, school authorities tried to tap into this interest by allowing pupils set up their own ‘radio station’ to broadcast at lunchtime through intercom systems. A number of these students would later become involved in pirate radio and would trace their interest in ‘radio’ broadcasting back to those early school stations.

By the seventies, ‘radio’ was everywhere and with the state broadcaster Radio Eireann attempting to cater for all tastes, the need for the broadcasting of popular programmes and music was growing rapidly. Pirate radio offered one alternative, but others emerged. When President Erskine Childers opened the expansive entertainment complex of Leisureland in Galway, one of its attractions was its very own ‘radio station’ broadcasting through the centre’s ‘closed circuit’ system. It paved the way for other venues to follow the example and these stations provided an alternative, employment and training for future broadcasters.

Another ‘radio’ station that gained widespread publicity was CIE’s radio train. The first excursion departed Kingsbridge (now Heuston) Station on November 6^th !949. The idea sprung from two CIE employees Pat Heneghan and Gerry Mooney and was designed originally to make the centenary of the opening of the Dublin to Cork rail link. A studio was installed in one of the carraiges and the ‘broadcasts’ were piped through the train. On that first trip the man ‘spinning the discs’ and entertaining the passengers was Terry O’Sullivan. The trip was an instant success and every year throughout the fifties the number of trips of the Radio train increased and were often sold out. It proved just as popular as CIE’s other novelty trips ‘The Mystery Train’. The company also ran specials including an Irish language return trip to Galway and a Pioneers trip with the bar carriage removed. The bus service attempted to piggy back on the success of the trains by advertising a ‘Radio Bus’ but it was simply a guide on a microphone telling some stories and inviting passengers to sing.

Later incarnations of radio stations with the transmitter included the Virgin Record Store on Aston Quay that opened in the late eighties and stations built into new shopping centres to entertain and promote the shops in the centre.

Radio Survives and Thrives in a Pandemic

One of the earliest forms of mass entertainment was the invention of the cinema which is traced back to the late 1800's with the advances of Edison and the Lumiere brothers. Cinema has evolved over the decades in cinemas and studios, through the decades. The list includes, the silent era, the use of sound, cinemascope, 3D, animation, the different genres from slapslick to sci-fi and the evolutionary advances in CGI has changed how we consume the movies. Each development being heralded as a 'game changer'. Each new theme is an attempt to keep the audience captive, evolving as the audience evolves and matures. Each development becomes an attempt to suspend our belief in reality or to create a new reality. The cinema, like other mediums. lures us in and then through mystery, comedy, horror or action alters our perception of the world. Cinema has changed with the times, reflected the times we live in and changed how we consume the medium with the arrival of talkies, the blockbuster or propaganda films.

Cinema's cousin is television and from the time of Baird in the 1920's, television too has changed in both delivery and consumption. The early television was mechanical, then electrical became the norm and the medium evolved from 405 lines to 625 lines to HD, black and white became colour, sets originally were bulky are now flat screen and slimline, cable television, satellite TV and digital. What we consume has expanded, as has delivery systems from single channel, to multi channel, video recorders, on demand, subscription TV and online.

The internet in the past two decades has developed at a tremendous speed and its entertainment provision has expanded, sometimes unchecked. From YouTube to Tik Tok, from online gaming to social media and from porn to online movies and sports, the internet continues to evolve and to entertain. The method of consumption has also changed exponentially. Originally a hard drive and a monitor were the delivery system, today it is on lap tops, tablets and mobile phones.

One entertainment that has changed the least is the delivery of audio entertainment via the radio. The radio had been with us since the 1920's and while the method of delivery whether it is via AM/FM/SW/LW, digital or online apps the content has changed little, speech and music with no special effects or gimmicks ( not withstanding the brief relationship with AM stereo). The wireless box in the corner of the living room has morphed into a portable transistor radio, the car radio, through your mobile phone and online, often changing the definition of radio.

The radio station, like the movie studio or the television channel may have different outlooks and editorial bias, they may be state run, independent and commercial, local and community,  pirate or institutional outlets but their content changes little. That editorial direction, like a movie or TV show are often tailored for their particular audience but at the end of the broadcast it is speech delivery or music. If you tune up and down the radio bands or listen to online audio content including podcasts, speech and/or music is what you will here and unlike a cinema where having paid in and you don't like the film and rarely walk out, on radio you can easily change what you listen to.

With reflection on current events (the Covid19 pandemic 2020), the cinemas are closed and fake news confuses the consumer online and in social media, yet radio has found a new lease of life as it continues to deliver speech in the form of information and news and allows quiet reflection with music of every genre. Radio has surprised and surpassed expectations in these troubled times and we as a race of people should be thankful for the fact that radio is there, the constant companion whether you are in the kitchen, the bedroom, the car or exercising and we should show our appreciation to those who have stayed on the air whether it is from the quieter studios or home studios, they have been essential.

The Festival Pirate Radio Stations of the 1970s

Throughout the seventies, towns and villages across Ireland organised local festivals to create entertainment and attract business. These festivals ranged from accordian festivals, Wild Boar, Trout, May Day, Christmas shopping and Cheese promotions. In the sixties and early seventies festivals advertised a ‘radio station’ to entertain and inform but rather than transmitter based these stations like Omagh Festival Radio, Athlone’s and Carrick-on-Shannon’s celebration of the River Shannon and Radio Loughshinny were ‘broadcast’ via a public address system attached to poles in the town or from speakers hung outside the festival office. From the mid-seventies , RTE’s mobile service broadcast live from various festivals but that was usually just for one year, rarely visiting the same town twice, therefore the festival committee’s seeing the success of the previous years broadcasts set up a transmitter and began to broadcast themselves. These included stations like Radio Ceilteach and Radio Letterkenny Folk Festival both in Donegal, Radio Charleville who were originally a RTE mobile visit but in subsequent years received the assistance of Big D Radio in Dublin to go on air but the ‘committee pointed out that this is festival radio not a pirate radio.’

Some of the stations that broadcast in the seventies via transmitters include,

Festival Radio Ardee – MW

In 1972 this early festival radio broadcast for the local festival celebrating December 8^th, a major shopping day before Christmas.

Festival Radio Ballinrobe – MW

This station operated from 8am – 10pm during the ‘Trout Festival’ which was held annually in June. It was first heard during the 1977 festival in the County Mayo town.

Festival Radio Charleville – 212m MW

In 1977 RTE’s mobile radio station visited the town for the Cheese Festival. For the following years with the assistance of Dublin’s Big D Radio, the festival committee put the festival station back on the air.

Festival Radio Ceilteach – 192m MW

This station was reported during the Falcarragh Celtic Music Festival in June 1979. Falcarragh is located in Donegal.

Festival Radio Downings – 192m MW

A local Donegal festival station that operated during July 1983.

Festival Radio Kanturk – 212m MW

Was heard broadcasting during the Wild Boar festival in July 1975. 

Festival Radio Kilmaine – MW

Organised by Pat and Jackie O’Connor, this county Mayo station broadcast for one festival from 16^th – 25^th June 1978.

Festival Radio Kilorglin – FM

Operated for the local Puck festival in August 1984, the temporary station was replaced by a more permanent station in the Kerry town in the years after. 

Festival Radio Letterkenny – 192m MW

This station was operated during the Letterkenny Folk Festival in August 1977.

Festival Radio Twin Towns – 192m MW

A Donegal based station that operated during a festival spread between the twin towns of Stranolar and Ballybofey during July 1983.

The Crazy World of 1930's Irish Radio

Radio Normandie's Headquarters near Felcamps France,

According to a January 1933 edition of the Irish Radio News magazine, a new entity The International Broadcasting Company was formed ‘to handle the advertisement side of the station’s activities’. The then Irish Minister for Posts and Telegraphs signed the contract with The IBC on August 23rd 1933.

The IBC was the brainchild of entrepreneur and British Conservative MP Leonard Plugge. He had identified a new radio market with programmes aimed at the British audiences from transmitters located outside that jurisdiction. His first venture was Radio Normandie which was initially a small low powered private radio station located in the North of France. Under his direction, a high powered transmitter was installed and broadcasts were aimed at London and the South of England. Lord Reith who ran BBC Radio at that time, believed that Sunday broadcasts from the Corporation should be of a sedate, religious nature and this opened up an opportunity for Plugge to launch a commercial alternative broadcasting the most popular music of the day and selling advertising. He even created and sold a face cream for women to prove the worth of radio advertising to prospective clients. 

Normandie was extremely popular with both listeners and advertisers. The station proved to be a major challenge for the BBC and it was only the intervention of the Second World War that curbed the private broadcasting boom. A second station opened to broadcast into London and that was Radio Luxembourg located in the Grand Duchy which would continue on its famous 208 frequency into the 1980s.

Plugge increased the availability of his sponsored programmes into the western half of Britain especially to cities like Manchester and Liverpool by utilising the new powerful Athlone transmitter. He rented airtime in the evenings from 9 – 11pm and to sweeten the pot for the capitalistic Plugge, Radio Eireann extended the available hours from November 1933 to include 1-4pm on Sunday afternoons. There were however many complaints within Ireland about the programming especially both the music being played and the products being advertised and as the contract expired on May 22nd 1934 it was not renewed by the Government. The sponsored programmes ceased except for one who did a direct deal with the Irish Government it being the infamous Irish Hospital’s sweepstakes. They knew from their research that the broadcasts were working in the UK as sales of their tickets continued to soar and so continued to sponsor a half hour show each night from ten o’clock. 

Generating finance was at the heart of these broadcasts into Britain as both Plugge and his IBC were selling advertising and Radio Eireann was making money from selling the airtime. The cost for Plugge’s sponsorship was listed as £120 per hour, £70 for a half hour, £55 for 20mins or £45 for 15minutes. The Irish Government’s decision to sell airtime meant that from earning £220 in advertising revenue in 1932, a year later the station had earned £22,000, a lifeline for the cash strapped station. Unfortunately for the station itself this new found wealth came at a price as the Government reduced the percentage of the licence fee paid to the station to finance its operations. 

In July 1938, Robert Silvey who had been hired by the BBC to analyse listener research, secretly reported to his bosses at Portland Place, BBC Headquarters that Radio Athlone’s largest proportion of listeners was not in Ireland but in the North West of England in Liverpool and Manchester this was attributed to the sponsored programmes and the ex-pat community in those areas. As a result of these findings and to compete with the success of Radio Athlone, the BBC’s Northern Regional transmitter network and finances were significantly expanded.

But at times Plugge liked to poke a stick at the authorities on both sides of the Irish Sea who ran radio at the time. In a BBC documentary on Plugge broadcast in August 2014, which included interviews with his the son, the documentary alluded to the fact that even in naming his company as 'The International Broadcasting Company' (later also known as The Industrial Broadcasting Company) the initials for the station I.B.C. when said quickly sounded like B.B.C.. He even based his company's London headquarters on Portland Place just yards from BBC Broadcasting House. 

And in using Radio Eireann's Athlone transmitter and frequency to beam his programmes into the West coast of Britain, he cheekily used the 'Come Back To Erin' song as his signature theme tune. The song had already been attributed to the first incarnation of Radio Eireann when it was launched in 1926 as 2RN (To Erin).

The Radio Pictorial January 1935

Radio Pictorial September 1938

Plugge also purchased airtime from other European stations to broadcast popular Irish music and to sell advertising allowing even Irish listeners to find an alternative on the dial for traditional Irish music and more current Irish music than was being played by Radio Eireann. Even Radio Luxembourg, then broadcasting on their pre-war frequency of 230m were broadcasting programmes specifically aimed at the 'Irish Free State' and selling advertising to the companies and products that while being sold in Ireland were denied airtime by the authoritarian management at Radio Eireann. 

A Century of Irish Radio Reviews

A Century of Irish Radio 1900 -2000

This new book tells the story of how this popular medium with much of its early history centered in Ireland, has revolutionised and changed Irish society more than any other medium.

“An excellent work, this book is a must”, Ian Biggar, The DX Archive (Scotland)

“An excellent read”, Amazon 5* review by Premier Radio

“If you’ve an interest in broadcasting, this book is for you. Well worth the money”, Aidan Cooney Q102 Presenter and former Ireland AM (TV3) host

“Eddie’s magnus opus is the most comprehensive work on the history and evolution of radio in Ireland. Historically important record” Eoin Morgan News4 Newspaper
“A great book”, Ralph McGarry radio presenter

“A superb read” E. Burbage on Goodreads

“A great read” Rob Allen 96FM Cork

This comprehensive story begins when Ireland became the first nation in the world to be declared by radio during the iconic events of the 1916 Easter Rising. It charts the birth of legal radio in 1926 which is shrouded in scandal and reports of corruption with fatal consequences. Irish radio while born in the twenties, the evolutionary 1930's would change how the Irish listener consumed and interacted with the’ wireless’. The book tells why Radio Eireann’s revenue in 1932 was £220 but a year later they reported revenues of £22,000. In the 1930’s you could learn to swim on the radio or listen to commentaries on the International Fishing competitions held on the rivers and lakes of Ireland. You can read about an anti-Jazz movement whose legal ramifications are still felt today and how the Church and State battled both for and on the airwaves. We unravel an urban myth that the first ever radio broadcast of ‘The Saint’ was on Radio Eireann in 1940. The book tells the story of the first man in the world to die on hunger strike, Sean McNeela having been convicted of pirate radio broadcasting. The book acknowledges the real success of Radio Eireann as it transformed rural Ireland on limited resources and offered women a new independence and perspective.

The Irish language was relegated to third place for a time on the official airwaves but the radio battle for our native language to have access to the ether has been long, protracted and eventful. Irish radio has been a conduit for propaganda and has become Americanised with men like Bill Cunningham changing how we consume radio, the giveaways, the profits and even the success and failure of Atlantic 252. The book tells how this nation interacts with the rest of the world through radio and how ironically it was two Englishmen Leonard Plugge and Chris Cary who revolutionised radio in Ireland.

For the first time ever, the book lists and offers station histories of over one thousand illegal pirate radio stations from the first conviction of Michael Madden in 1935 to the commercial successes of the so called super pirates of the 80’s with Nova and ERI. The book examines the impact of political pirate radio in Northern Ireland at the beginning of the troubles and how paramilitary pirate stations brought down a Government and accelerated the end of a major political career. It documents how pirate radio and TV both threatened Government policy and led to dramatic change. As an avalanche of pirate radio stations across the country forced new legislation creating legal independent radio and television, commercial interests would dominate and cause further controversy with stories of fraud and corruption.

Learn about the good and evil within pirate radio, how this illegal activity created today’s radio industry. ‘A Century of Irish Radio 1900-2000’ covers the border blasters, the innovators, the urban myths are dismantled, and we reveal the careers of characters and presenters from Michael O’Hehir and Larry Gogan to Dave Fanning and Andy Preston. The first full comprehensive history of Irish radio in decades is detailed in this 595-page book.

Copies of the book can be purchased here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Century-Irish-Radio-1900-2000/dp/1717899641

Cavan Online Radio Interview May 2019

On a recent visit to both legal and pirate radio stations in the border region, with thanks to Patsy Sheridan I visited the studios of Cavan Online Radio. Based in an large house at the back of a national school, the signs on the path for 'the men's shed' led me to the studios.

Upon arrival I was greeted by station manager Daniel Downey who filled me on the station's history and future plans. The studios would make many legal stations jealous and is a credit to the volunteers who keep the station alive for an ever increasing audience. It's eclectic mix of programming caters for a wide variety of interests and listeners in far flung fields. A link for the Cavan diaspora, the station allows provides training for those wishing to understand how radio works from in front and behind the microphone.

This is my interview with Daniel.
Cavan Online Radio Interview May 2019

You can listen to Cavan Online Radio at

https://www.spreaker.com/user/cavanonlineradio


Check out the stations website at

http://cavanonlineradio.weebly.com/

My thanks to all the staff and volunteers at Cavan Online Radio.

(The broadcast aerial used for the station's temporary licence)

Northern Ireland Pirate Radio 1969 - 1975 Lecture

The following is an except from a 2019 lecture I delivered on Northern Ireland pirate radio 1969-1975.

PAGE ONE

This is a lecture on the Northern Ireland pirate radio stations 1969-1975. My name is Eddie Bohan and I am a broadcast historian involved in the Irish Pirate Radio Archive and I have published two books ‘Rebel Radio, The Easter Rising Broadcasts’ and ‘A Century of Irish Radio 1900-2000’. This lecture is accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation and I will make the slides available on the University website.

SLIDE

By the late 1960s the demand by the Catholic/Nationalist community within the six counties of Northern Ireland for electoral, employment, housing and social equality with their Protestant/Loyalist neighbours brought protests out onto the streets of the major cities of Belfast and Derry/Londonderry.

In October 1968 a Civil Rights march through Derry was attacked by the police who were seen by many Catholics to be doing the dirty work of the Unionist led Northern Ireland Government based at Stormont. Marches in Belfast ended in rioting and police baton charges. Between August 12th – 17th 1969 serious rioting took place across the province which was both political and sectarian. The Northern Ireland Prime Minister Terence O’Neill who had been attempting to appease the communities was replaced by James Chichester Clark and on August 14th he requested assistance from the British Government in London and British troops were deployed on the streets of Northern Ireland in support of the police force the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) for the first time. Catholic homes and business were targeted and burned down forcing Catholics to flee many towards the border where the Irish Government of Jack Lynch had set up field hospitals and refugee camps. The IRA who had been dormant since 1962 re-emerged and Loyalist paramilitaries encouraged by the incendiary rhetoric of Reverend Ian Paisley attacked each other and both in turn attacked the British Army.

The result of the instability and the violent discrimination was the creation of no-go areas in Belfast and Derry with the famous white gable wall in Derry proclaiming that ‘You Are Entering Free Derry’ with the Catholic areas barricaded offering a sense of both isolation and independence. The two major cities were polarized into Catholic and Protestant areas with each barricading themselves from attack by the opposite community and by the police and army. The situation was tense and fluid and information was hard to come by.

News was often nothing more rumour and conjecture, falsehoods creating fear and misinformation causing tension across the island of Ireland. For most people access the news was via newspapers and the radio and television. Newspapers were often slanted towards one side of the other and when the rioting began newspaper production and deliveries were badly disrupted. Locals turned to the radio for updates, often simply to discover if it was safe for them to leave their homes to venture to the shops to buy much needed supplies.

Their reputed listenership was in excess of 70% and they were often the sole outlet for news. They gave voice to the oppressed, they challenged the Government’s official positions, they provided morale boosts, they rallied their foot soldiers into action. They were the pirate radio stations of Northern Ireland 1969 – 1975. Who were they? What was the impact on their communities and the course of the Troubles? Why was there a vacuum that required their existence? How extensive were their operations and how did the Government attempt to tackle the issue?

As the ‘Troubles’ began in 1969, The BBC Northern Ireland controller Waldo Maguire said that the ‘BBC should modify the presentation of news in a way to avoid extreme provocation’. The news from the BBC would appear to have been sanitized from the very early stages of the Troubles.  In an editorial in the Nationalist Newspaper on August 29th 1969 it said ‘inaccurate reporting has made the BBC at times akin to a purveyor of British propaganda’. Access to news was limited. Northern Ireland was served by BBC Radio Ulster and BBC Television Northern Ireland who operated an opt out facility for short news bulletins after the main BBC News programmes and some limited programme production from within the province. The commercial IBA[1] franchise was Ulster Television and it too provided limited programming from within the province relaying the main ITV networked programming instead. BBC Radio and TV NI provided eight news bulletins for the entire day each totalling five minutes in duration and UTV added two more often overlapping with their BBC counterparts. For those able to receive RTE Radio and Television from south of the border had access to 25 news bulletins each day[2]. By the end of 1969 as the violence escalated RTE opened a news office in Belfast. There was a void for up to the minute news and news that was aimed not generically but at specific communities and this void was about to be filled by illegal, clandestine pirate radio stations that would have a major impact on the direction of the Troubles over the following years. 

PAGE TWO

Between 1969 and 1975 when sectarianism was at its ugliest and deadliest, local communities of Protestants and Catholics relied on their local pirate radio station to provide news and occasional entertainment. The stations also reinforced the feelings in both communities that they were under attack from the opposite side. These stations broadcast mainly in Belfast and Derry. Their diet of propaganda caused incitement to violence and the authorities battled to get them closed down. These stations were illegal and broadcast as pirates, but they were more specifically clandestine stations as were political pirate radio stations. Clandestine stations are classified as either black or grey. Grey radio refers to stations operated by dissident groups within a country. Black stations are broadcast by one side disguised as broadcasts by the other.

Almost as soon as the barricades went up along the Shankill Road and the Falls Road, two pirate stations were broadcasting to their respective communities. The Irish Independent reported on August 26th

‘While there is a lull in the rioting, a propaganda battle is raging in Belfast. Broadcasting from behind the barricades in the Falls area ‘Radio Free Belfast’ is sending out a stream of anti-Government propaganda interspersed with patriotic songs and pop record requests. ‘Radio Free Ulster is conducting an equally vigorous campaign for the other side from the Shankill area. Both stations operate on very similar wavelengths and at time deliberately make attempts to interfere with one another, by cutting in during transmission.'

SLIDE

Radio Free Belfast was located above the Long Bar on the Falls Road utilising a homemade medium wave transmitter began broadcasting on 244m before jamming forced it to move to 300m. In a memorandum prepared by An Garda Síochána for the Department of Justice on events in Northern Ireland on 5 September 1969 it reported.

‘Radio Free Belfast, The Radio of Revolution, was on the air on Friday night; it had been operating for two or three days previous to this. This is a pirate radio station operating on 240 to 245 meters on the Medium Wave Band. The radio is on the air twenty-four hours a day. It has been set up by the Peoples' Democracy and the Belfast Citizen's Defence Committee. The transmitter is situated in the Catholic, Falls Road area and has a radius of about 4 to 5 miles. At times it is blotted out for long periods. The announcer said that it was set up to boost the morale of the men manning the barricades and urged them to make the barricades higher and thicker.

It plays requests for these men and appeals for food and necessities. Radio Free Belfast makes four demands off the Stormont Government

(1): To release the men interned in Crumlin Road Prison and revoke the Special Powers Act.

(2)  To disarm and disband the 'B' Specials.

(3) Disarm the R.U.C. and sack its Senior Officers.

(4) Suspend the Stormont Government.

The radio dwells mostly on the interned political prisoners and states that there are about 30 in Crumlin Road Prison. The requests played are a mixture of 'Pops' and 'Patriotic Songs', i.e. 'Sean South', 'Boys of Wexford, etc. The radio also transmits messages such as the numbers of privately owned police car's operating in the area with the names of the police officers in same. It gives details of property lost and found and transmits messages to parents and relatives of refugees in the South. It is manned by an English Disc Jockey at night and by men with Northern accents in the daytime.

On Saturday evening, 23/8/1969, there was a message read over Radio Free Belfast from the National Solidarity Committee, Gardiner Place, Dublin. It called on persons from all walks of life in the 'Free State' to force the 26 County Government to take further action in regard to the problems in the Six Counties. There are two other pirate radios operating in the Belfast area at the moment. There are "Radio Peace" and "Radio Ulster". They are believed to be in operation in the Protestant Shankill area and are very amateurish in comparison with Radio Free Belfast.’

PLAY CLIP

In a further ‘secret’ document in September 1969 from the Department of Justice to the Taoiseach Jack Lynch it stated that,

"The Long Bank", 59 Leeson Street, where Radio Free Belfast was in operation, is a Licensed Premises. The Station which was manned by a staff of eight (8) - six (6) men and two (2) girls - is used ' to announce any developments to the residents in the locality. Between announcements record requests are played for those persons manning the barricades. This station was on the air for twenty-one (21) hours of the 24. It goes off the air from 9am to 12 noon. daily, to give the equipment an opportunity of cooling. There is a notice to this effect on the 'wall of the studio.'

It also band scanned the Belfast airwaves revealing the following station information

NAME                        FACTION                   LOCATION

 (1) Voice of Ulster                 Protestant                    Barnsley Park, Shankill Road.

 (2) Radio Orange                   do                                do

(3) Radio Shankill                  do                                "The Hammer" Shankill Road.

(4) Radio Sundown                do                                do

(5) Radio Free Belfast            Catholic                     "The Long Bank" 59 Leeson street.

(6) Radio Peace,                     Neutral                        Springfield Park off Springfield Road.

John McGuffin was one of the main men behind the station said that the station broadcast ‘from behind the barricades’. The station would later move frequency due to British Army jamming to 300m.

Radio Free Belfast delivered a message to their loyal listeners

“The Protestant workers are the poor dupes of the junta of effete aristocrats and hard-faced capitalists that have for fifty years divided our country and have divided the working class on a sectarian basis.'

On the opposite side was Radio Free Ulster (often referring to itself simply as Radio Ulster) on 242m MW also began broadcasting in August 1969 with DJ’s named Lord Orange, Roarin’ Meg, Sad Sam, Cameronian Kid and Orange Lil. They galvanised the stereotypes of the Catholic community that the loyalist paramilitaries were promoting. Radio Free Ulster was one of a number of Loyalist pirate radio stations including Radio Orange operating as the ‘Troubles’ began.

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PAGE THREE

Another loyalist station was Radio Shankill or alternatively known as Radio Ulster began broadcasting with a transmitter built by Johnny Doak from Tigers Bay in Belfast. The station’s broadcasts added to the tension in the city and threats were directed at ‘the Republicans of the Falls Road’ and jeering that Catholic owned public houses had been targeted and destroyed by loyalist mobs.

When a twenty-three years old Protestant Jack Todd was shot dead from a speeding car on September 7th, the underground Protestant pirate station urged loyalist vigilantes to move against Roman Catholics. Belfast seemed to be on the brink of outright civil war. On Sunday September 7th tensions at the interface between the two communities were heightened. The Irish Independent reported

‘The action of the army only angered them more and in a short time they gathered again; this time the crowd swelling by several hundred. Then the Shankill pirate radio, station broadcast a message calling on every able-bodied man to report to Percy Street where, the- broadcaster said, an attack was being made on "the Fenians." "Will all units please report immediately," said the announcer, as if there was a prearranged plan. "This is a republican plot. The British troops are guarding the Falls. We are asking for the Royal Ulster Constabulary to man our barricades. This is no reflection on Her Majesty's troops. " We plead to all loyalists not to be provoked by retaliation against Her Majesty's loyal forces. 'This is what the Republicans want. Don't fall into the trap."

The Fermanagh Herald reported that on the night of Friday September 12th

‘A crowd, estimated at between 2,000 and 3,000, massed at Boyne Bridge menacing Durham Street with ten truckloads of soldiers separating them from a small crowd at the bottom of Albert Street. The Sandy Row crowd turned out after a call over " Radio Ulster " the Shankill Road station for " loyalists " to come out and defend their homes. During the night broadcasts by Radio Ulster resulted in crowds gathering in Protestant districts at several points. At one time a woman, broadcasting over Radio Ulster was declaring that the Irish Republican Army, with Tricolour in front, was advancing on the Shankill Road.’

One writer described the output of the Belfast pirates as

‘From Free Belfast’s eloquent political homilies full of wit and passion alternating with passionate witty folk songs to Orange Lil tongue snared bluster alternating with the Sash and God Save The Queen repeated like an incurable stammer.’

The equipment was crude and the transmitters often cobbled together from ex-army transmitters. A turntable and a microphone and these stations were on the air. They were breaking the Wireless Telegraphy Act and liable to a £400 fine for a first offence or £400 per day on air if discovered by the GPO detection inspectors. A raid by the Army in October 1969 netted the authorities the transmitter for Radio Ulster on the Shankill Road.

Not every commentator believed that the pirates in Belfast had any influence. Justin Hale in his book ‘Radio Power, Propaganda and International Broadcasting’ said

‘Both the IRA and Protestant extremists are an amalgam of fragmented group who would find it hard to maintain a consistent line of propaganda. But above all the radios are on the fringe because there is no essential need for them. Other means of communication exist, the area is small, the aims of the participants are widely known even if the tactics sometimes need some explaining to the faithful and the outsiders alike.’

SLIDE

Across the province at 7.02pm on January 10th 1969, Radio Free Derry broadcasting on 1388khz medium wave came to life. The Derry City station broadcast with a 25watt transmitter originally operated by the Socialist Resistance Group control later passing to the Official IRA. With studios and transmitter located in the Rossville Street flats, one of the main movers behind the station was the socialist campaigner Eamonn McCann who would later become a member of the Stormont Assembly. In his book ‘War in an Irish Town’ McCann wrote about the radio station

It was installed in an eighth-storey flat in Rossville Street with the aerial on the roof. We began broadcasting, describing ourselves as ‘Radio Free Derry, the Voice of Liberation’. The only people more appalled than the government by the situation were the leaders of the CAC. They had never intended barricades. But blood was up and there was nothing they could do about it. By chance the radio transmitter had been presented to Dermie McClenaghan and me. We used it to make propaganda encouraging the people to keep the barricades up and the police out and to ‘join your vigilante patrols’. We were perhaps erratic. On one occasion Tommy McDermott, who believed in the revolutionary potential of underground music, was left alone with the transmitter, an opportunity which he used to treat the populace to two hours of the Incredible String Band interspersed with whispered injunctions to ‘love one another and keep cool’. But for the most part we played rebel songs, and White, McClenaghan, Melaugh and I and some others delivered regular harangues. Reception was good, the listening audience vast.

Radio Free Derry nightly bombarded the area with pleas to ‘keep up the resistance’. We failed to swing the population round completely to this point of view, which possibly was not a bad thing because at the time we had neither the organization nor the means to put such resistance into effect. By the end of the week nervousness and uncertainty had replaced the excitement of Sunday night. The CAC had kept on the side lines. Late on Friday night Hume, Cooper, Canavan and a few others descended on the area and with a series of perfectly pitched and brilliantly timed speeches convinced the vigilantes that the barricades ought to be dismantled. They were gone by the morning. Any attempt to re-erect them would have been a frontal challenge to the CAC, and the revolutionary disc-jockeys of Radio Free Derry were in no position to do that, most of them, after all, being members of that body. (Citizens Action Committee)

PLAY CLIP

The radio transmitter, now operating from Eamonn Melaugh’s house in Creggan, was pumping out Republican music and exhortations to ‘keep the murderers out. Don’t weaken now. Make every stone and petrol bomb count.’ The police were making charge after charge up Rossville Street. In a 2010 interview on BBC Radio Ulster, Jimmy Porter remembered his involvement in Radio Free Derry and said that while the station was located in the flats, the transmitters was put into the lift shaft meaning the station drifted in and out as the lift moved up and down fooling the British Army engineers into believing that the station was on the move possibly in the back of a van.

Radio Free Derry was joined on the air by Radio Saoirse operated by the Provisional IRA based on Rathlin Drive in the city. The station also air checked as The Voice of The Second Battalion. In September 1969 another station appeared on the medium wave calling itself ‘Radio Bogside’ and operated by the Citizens Defence Association.

Radio Free Derry was back on the air on August 23rd 1971 and according to the Socialist Resistance Group who set up the station it was using a 180 watt transmitter located on the southside of the border in Donegal but audible as far as Strabane.

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PAGE SEVEN

The Stormont Government met on September 9th 1969 to specifically discuss the issue of pirate radio and how to put them off the air. The consensus was that if the British Army, who were now patrolling the streets, and the RUC forcibly entered that had become no-go ghettos the spectre of violence and bloodshed was all too imminent. The following day British Army engineers began to jam the broadcasts of the three main stations in Belfast, Radio Shankill, Radio Free Ulster both Protestant stations and the Catholic Radio Free Belfast. What followed was a cat and mouse game as the stations moved up and down the medium wave band, this also caused interference to the legal broadcasters in the province and they often ended up jamming each other’s frequencies. This had an affect and while the stations continued to broadcast their signals were almost inaudible.

As the violence escalated across the province and the two sides became more entrenched more stations emerged often using transmitters previously used. Radio 3 Belfast was located on the Falls Road, the station mimicked the fact that there was already a BBC Radio 1 and 2. Broadcasting to the nationalist community the station lasted a couple of weeks in October 1970. On the opposite side was Radio Orange on 242m MW which began broadcasting in September 1970 and the rhetoric included announcing

‘loyal citizens of Belfast buy nothing from the Republic, no Kerrygold, no Donnelly’s bacon, no Gateaux cakes, no perri crisps.’

After serious rioting in Belfast in October 1969 with Radio Orange inciting the Loyalist communities to attack Catholics the station was raided and closed by the British Army. In June 1970, the station was back on the air and this time the British Army jammed its signal.

 A call ' for the silencing of pirate radio stations was made in a blunt editorial in the "Belfast Telegraph". It said that this was a new and sinister factor in the conflict that now smouldered in Belfast, and the authorities had chosen to turn a blind eye to it for too long. In Derry "prompt action might have stamped it out at birth, but the authorities clearly did not recognise its influence' on events ". In Derry opposition was minimal and largely ineffectual, the paper said, but in Belfast the freedom of the airwaves had led to an unprecedented state of propaganda which had shown that it could influence people and events. The paper went on to ask: "Who can doubt that much of the dangerous build-up of Protestant feeling that took place in the Shankill and Sandy Row yesterday was the result of a hysterical call to arms through the Protestant radio? At the same time the naming of members of the B Specials over Radio Free Belfast is highly inflammatory." Stating that the military and police had a difficult enough job to do without interference calculated to make it more difficult still, the "Telegraph" said: "The radios must be silenced or someone will have a lot of explaining to do for refusing to act in time"

SLIDE

Armagh Resistance Radio on medium wave was believed by the British Army to be located in the Slieve Gullion area of Armagh and began broadcasting at Christmas 1971. The station was reported to be broadcasting advice to listeners about the ‘Rent and Rates’ strike that was taking place as a form of resistance to British rule in Northern Ireland at the time.  The station was picked up in many of the border counties and included requests for Republican internees.

One of the bigger stations in Loyalist Belfast was Radio Free Nick on 244m MW. The station opened in 1972 with a twenty watts transmitter operated by the Ulster Defence Association, the station was often ID'ed as The Voice of the UDA. Their transmitter had a range of twelve miles and broadcast for up to 16 hours a day. A house on Ceylon Street off the Shankill Road was raided by the British Army and the stations equipment confiscated. No arrests were made.

The station was one of the most listened to in Belfast at the time for the loyalist community as they broadcast coded messages and calls for people to man barricades in their area. The station became required listening and while much of their broadcasts were anti-Catholic and anti-Nationalist, they kept their own local community informed. In July 1972 most Protestants and especially Loyalist paramilitaries were getting all their information from Free Radio Nick. At one stage it told all UDA units not to move from their areas until further notice as it announced that an alleged statement asking units to move to Legadoon was false propaganda. The station broadcasts a mix of appeals for Protestants to join the UDA and music including Loyalist songs such as The Sash and Our Flag interspersed with music from the likes of Jim Reeves. One female presenter known on air as ‘Our Sal’ urged Catholics to ‘take in your tricolours and put out the flag of Ulster, you are daughters and sons of Ulster too.’

PAGE EIGHT

On Saturday July 22nd the newspapers reported that an IRA pirate radio station had reported that fifteen IRA active service members had been killed, ten of them in Belfast. The station added that 58 of their men had been injured. This newspaper report of the pirate stations claims came the day after what became known as Bloody Friday in Belfast when the IRA exploded nineteen bombs in 90 minutes that killed nine including five civilians. While according to Sean MacStiofan, who masterminded the bombing offensive, the intention of Bloody Friday was to damage infrastructure and not to cause loss of life but now with the loss of life the IRA in the eyes of its supporters needed to reclaim the moral high ground and to emphasize that this was not an attack on civilians but part of an all-out war. The pirate stations claim was that these IRA men were killed since the ending of a short-nlived IRA ceasefire that lasted from June 26th – July 9th.  In the aftermath of the bombs, 2000 British soldiers began raiding houses in Belfast arresting 58, the same number as used in the broadcasts to claim the number of IRA members injured.

July 1972 became one of the deadliest months of the trouble with 96 deaths. 1972 was the worst year of the troubles with 476 deaths including 249 civilians, 149 security forces and 78 paramilitaries.  Sources on the casualties for that month show that from the time of the end of the ceasefire and Bloody Friday, the IRA lost 4 men to British army fire while in the same period the security forces lost 12 men. The truth was becoming a casualty of war. 

Some of the short-lived stations in Belfast included Raidio na Phoblachta on 208m MW that made Marxist broadcasts while Radio Northern Ireland on 194m MW broadcast Unionist propaganda. Radio Saoirse on 246m MW was first heard in August 1971 broadcasting to Republican areas of Belfast with the station playing a selection of republican songs that announce called for the support of a ‘Dáil Uladh’, a provisional government for Ulster and said that they called ‘on all bodies representative of the area to commence a campaign of civil disobedience and declare the area an independent territory.  When the First Battalion of the Parachute Regiment entered the Whiterock area of Belfast early on the morning of August 11th to locate the pirate station and to dismantle barricades, the IRA opened fire and a two-hour gun battle followed which left three men dead.

The unusually named Gnomes of Ulster on 1556khzAM was located in South Belfast. GNU opened on June 20th 1972 and the name referred to Dutch Orangemen known as ‘Kabouters’. This station seemed to have no political motivation the operators of the station found the name for the station from a Dutch anarchist group. Also known as GNU Radio. Radio Ajax on 247mMW was a Pro-Unionist Belfast station of the early seventies as was also known as Radio Big Jim on 227mMW and went on the air after BBC Radio One went off the air from a location in Belfast.

SLIDE

The Voice of Free Belfast broadcast on 213m MW and was operated by the Socialist Alliance of Peoples Democracy with a 25watt transmitter from Anderstown, Belfast. Workers Radio on 232m MW (later 242m) opened Sunday April 2nd 1972 operated from the Falls Road Belfast by the Official IRA. Just two weeks later the station was closed when members of The Provisional IRA raided the house where the station was located and the man and woman on air were warned not to interfere with the transmitter destruction or they would be shot. The Official IRA claimed the house was owned by a pregnant woman. Another station was Radio Ronnie on 546khzAM and Radio Peace who broadcast for five hours per night from 11pm. A spokesman for the station Geoff Harden said that while the other Belfast pirates were sectarian their aim was ‘to provide something therapeutic to take peoples mind off the situation. Our role is spreading an atmosphere of calm.’ The theme tune for the station was ‘Give Peace A Chance’ by John Lennon. Geoff Harden (8th July 1943 – 4th September 2006) was a journalist, broadcaster, recording engineer and folk music promoter. Born in Kent, Harden moved to Belfast in 1966. He became well-known on the music scene in Belfast after setting up the Sunflower Flower Folk Club on Corporation Street, and consequently for his work as a folk music columnist in The Belfast News Letter and as a presenter on and contributor to numerous local radio stations.

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PAGE ELEVEN

Radio Sunshine according to Danny Morrison[3] who would later become a major force in the Sinn Fein organisation, this station was run by a ‘Dave’ and ‘Heather’ and was located near Belfast University. The station would go on air after BBC Ulster closed down. The GPO engineers began to track down the station and one Sunday evening their equipment and were getting ‘hotter and hotter’ and were disappointed when they discovered the station was located unattended in a telephone kiosk with a cheap homemade transmitter and tape recorder with the power source coming from the light fitting in the roof of the kiosk. Sunshine came on the following Sunday poking fun at the engineers.

Two songs both made the charts in part thanks to the Belfast pirate stations. Harvey Andrews ‘Soldier’ charted in 1973 after one of the Shankill stations continually played the tune. The song banned by the BBC and RTE, was based on the true story of Sergeant Michael Willets who was killed as he shielded children from a bomb thrown into the Springfield Road Police station. Andrews spoke later about the influence pf the song on the Loyalist community despite the fact that the song was not written to encourage sectarianism,

‘It seems that it was taken to be a pro-Loyalist song, which was never my intention. Years later it was released as a bootleg single by a Loyalist band and I have been told it was sold in pubs and out of car boots at Ibrox the home of Glasgow Rangers to raise money for paramilitaries. I was strongly opposed to this but was powerless to stop it. A song I had originally intended to once again mirror man's inhumanity to man has somehow become a vehicle for more of the same, something I regret’

The British Ministry of Defence advised their soldiers not to sing the song in pubs where it may incite strong emotive behaviour.

On the opposite side Paul McCartney’s song ‘Give Ireland back to the Irish’ was released on February 1972 and recorded with his then band Wings. It too was banned by the BBC and Radio Luxembourg but it did not stop it reaching No.11 in the British charts and No.21 in the USA. The song was written as a response to the events in Derry on Bloody Sunday. McCartney said,

‘From our point of view, it was the first time people questioned what we were doing in Ireland. It was so shocking. I wrote "Give Ireland Back to the Irish", we recorded it and I was promptly 'phoned by the Chairman of EMI, explaining that they wouldn't release it. He thought it was too inflammatory. I told him that I felt strongly about it and they had to release it. He said, "Well it'll be banned", and of course it was. I knew "Give Ireland Back to the Irish" wasn't an easy route, but it just seemed to me to be the time to say something.’

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PAGE TWELVE

Not every station took to the airwaves to air sectarian propaganda but took advantage of the authorities’ concentration on closing sectarian pirate stations. Harmony Radio was set up in Belfast by Good Vibrations Records founder Terri Hooley as an entertainment alternative to the hardcore vitriol of the political pirate stations. Then Radio 99 on 199mMW opened in April 1971 and set up by four friends to broadcast a non-political content with a diet of country and western music. The station was originally located in a disused house just inside the County Fermanagh border and was on air three hours Saturday and Sunday nights from 9.30pm opening each night with their signature tune Slim Whitman’s ‘What’s the World a Coming To’.

The station provided a postal address for requests of 6, Millbrook, Clones, County Monaghan but after just a couple of weeks on air the station was closed by loyalist paramilitaries who intimated the young broadcasters forcing them to close and move their transmitter south of the nearby border.

The station operators moved to Dunsrim near Scotshouse in County Monaghan with studios now housed in a caravan. The transmitter was built by Clones man Sean McQuillan using an ex-army transmitter. The station had three small transmitters two located south of the border and one north of the border across the River Finn.

 They periodically broadcast over the next four years with a name change to Radio Caroline North but it would all come to an end on November 21st 1975 when the Gardai raided the station. Three men Owen Smyth (aged 24) Charles Smyth (23) both from Knox, Scotshouse and Andrew Slowey from Cootehill, Cavan were found guilty of illegal broadcasting and each fined ten pounds each.

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A TV repairman by profession, McQuillan would maintain an interest in pirate radio and would assist Pat McCabe in 2006 to set up Radio Butty for a local festival with that station located in a VW van.  North of Belfast was Radio Antrim    on 1395khz AM. Test transmissions from this Belfast station began in July 1973 broadcasting on 215mMW with D.J. Richard Black introducing the station to the listeners of Belfast. A sixteen-watt transmitter broadcast non-political, non-commercial radio with a music format and local news and although it was not sectarian much of the news related to loyalist matters. After some initial successful broadcasts, the station went off the air only to return in 1974 using a Solihull, England mailing address. The station added a new voice to the airwaves, Paul Hamill and the station broadcast a mix of top twenty and C &W music. The station moved frequency to 224mMW and often relied on pre-recorded programmes. The station never achieved a sufficient level of support to stay on the air and the final broadcasts were heard in November 1975.

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In April 1974, close to the border with the Republic was Radio Free Newry broadcasting nationalist propaganda. Radio Woodvale was a loyalist paramilitary station linked to the UDA which was raided and closed by the British authorities in December 1974.

CONCLUSIONS NOT INCLUDED

Thank you

Questions

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[1] The Independent Broadcasting Authority

[2] This included 5 ‘Nuacht’ bulletins of between 1minute headlines and a 10 minute bulletin in Irish at 9.45pm

[3] www.dannymorrison.com

(c) The Irish Broadcasting Hall of Fame 2019