Ten Irish Radio Facts You May Not Know

 

Ireland has had a long, colourful and unique place in broadcasting history and as we enter a decade of radio centenaries, we look back at some of the facts that you may not be aware of that brings Ireland’s broadcasting history to the fore.

1.     The first public demonstration in Ireland of the new medium of Wireless Telegraphy took place on March 8th 1898. In front of an invited audience at the theatre of the Royal Dublin Society (RDS), a lecture was delivered by Monsignor Gerald Molloy titled ‘The Principles of Electric Signalling without Wires’. Also on stage with the cleric was the man who was at the forefront of Wireless Telegraphy development, Guglielmo Marconi. Marconi who proudly celebrated his Irish heritage through his mother Annie Jameson, a member of the whiskey distilling family.  A demonstration took place with a transmitter placed on the stage under the control of Monsignor Molloy and Marconi’s assistant William Lynd. In the gallery was Marconi with the receiving set and morse messages were sent through the ether in the theatre. That theatre today is the main chamber of the Irish parliament, Dail Eireann where the now Minister for Communications delivers his speeches.

2.     “One of the first places taken possession of by the insurgents was the Wireless School over Reis’ shop at the corner of Abbey Street and here during the night the wireless apparatus was re-erected complete with aerials”.

Thus, the Freeman’s Journal reported on events in O’Connell Street, April 1916. Rebel Radio ‘broke down the walls of silence built by the enemy’. The rebels’ launch of their very own radio station in April 1916 was a real and tangible success during the Easter Rising. This group of innovators broke new ground barely a decade after the invention of radio. Their actions, often under intense fire from their enemy, beat the odds and the British censorship blanket in Ireland. The radio station, located opposite the rebel headquarters in the GPO, was expertly planned and executed and it became a world’s first as the Irish Republic became the first State to be declared globally by radio. It was the first instance of battlefield propaganda being broadcast to the general listener. As the first Director of Irish Broadcasting the proclamation signatory (and later executed leader) Joseph Plunkett led a group of extraordinarily brave rebels. His charges included Fergus O’Kelly, John ‘Blimey’ O’Connor, Liam Daly and the Hollywood star Arthur Shield’s.

“To Officer in Charge Reis's and D.B.C. The main purpose of your post is to protect our wireless station. Its secondary purpose is to observe Lower Abbey Street and Lower O'Connell Street. Signed. James Connolly, Commandant General”.

3.     For many when 2RN, the forerunner of RTE Radio took to the airwaves on January 1st 1926, it was the first but before 2RN and even Belfast’s 2BE, Irelands first licensed radio station 2BP took to the airwaves for three days August 14th -16th 1923. It would be the first time that listeners in Dublin could hear Irish voices singing and playing Irish traditional airs.

4.     Much has been written and it is still fondly remembered that Tolka Row, first broadcast on RTE in January 1964, was the stations first foray into producing a soap opera but in fact it was the BBC who stole the march on the Irish broadcasters by first broadcasting Tolka Row on radio in October 1957 and on BBC TV in March 1959. RTE would eventually broadcast the Dublin based soap for five series.

 

5.     The two Irish language broadcasters TG4 & Raidio na Gaeltachta both had pirate incarnations before becoming legal entities. Radio Saor Connemara was a forerunner of the Irish language service on radio while Telifis na Gaeltacht in Rosmuc in 1987 promoted our native language on TV, before the arrival of TG4.

6.     First commercial use of radio was by the Goodbody family in Clara, County Offaly. The family and fellow businessmen were early investors in the Marconi wireless invention. The wireless system in the town connected wirelessly their flour manufacturing plant with their sack producing building.

7.     First use of radio for sports journalism in the world was by Marconi at the 1898 Dun Laoghaire regatta. Marconi transmitted radio signals from the tug The Flying Huntress in the bay giving details of the progress of the yacht races in the Kingstown Regatta to his assistant who manned the receiving equipment in what is now Moan Park House, Dun Laoghaire. The information was then telephoned to The Dublin Express newspaper who published results of the races shortly after they ended. This event represented the very first use of radio in journalism and sports broadcasting.

 

8.     In 1964, the famous pirate ship Radio Caroline was fitted out as a radio station in the County Louth harbour of Greenore by Dublin born Ronan O’Rahilly, whose family owned the port. The station, now with an Ofcom licence still broadcasts from the Ross Revenge ship off the Essex coast.

9.     Radio 2000 who lost out on the national franchise applied for one of the two Dublin licences, which he duly won along with Capital Radio. The franchises for Dublins independent local radio stations were awarded Radio 2000 and Capital Radio on March 2nd. At 8am on July 20th Capital Radio went on the air broadcasting from the St. Stephens Green Centre on 104mhzFM becoming the first of the new licensed radio stations. Radio 2000's station 98FM was launched from the former home of the pirate station Q102 in Mount Street broadcasting on 98mhzFM. Both stations had stolen the march on the nationally licensed Century Radio this despite Century's protests that the success of the national station depended on Century being on the air before the local stations. Capital Radio was launched at the Berkley Court Hotel with the first voice heard on the station being that of Scott Williams. Dublin's Lord Mayor Sean Haughey officially declared the station open before handing over to the studios and Colm Hayes who played the station's first record, Phil Lynott's 'Old Town'.

 

10.  The Hurdy Gurdy Museum in the Martello Tower in Howth has one of the largest collections of antiques radios and equipment from Irish radio history. The brainchild of the late Pat Herbert, the museum according to its website derives its name as ‘a homage to a remark made by Taoiseach Seán Lemass, who asked an RTÉ radio controller in the 1950s "How's the hurdy gurdy?". 

Radio News of the 1924 Curragh Mutiny

 

Two years before the launch of the national radio service 2RN, the power of radio and the dispersal of information was illustrated in County Kerry, the furthest distance from Dublin and the establishment of the radio station.

 

March 1924 was a turbulent month in Irish history with the Curragh mutiny and the possibility of a coup against the new Irish Free State Government. The mutiny was an Irish Army crisis that was provoked by a proposed reduction in army numbers in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. The events made the front pages of British newspapers on Sunday March 9^th and was covered in the news reports on the British Broadcasting Company’s stations including 2LO, London, 2ZY in Manchester and 5NO, Newcastle. 

Meanwhile as interest grew in Ireland with wireless broadcasting, Dublin based wireless set sellers Dixon and Hempenstall had brought in a wireless van to demonstrate wireless broadcasting around Ireland. They travelled County Kerry and on to Tralee in entertain the locals.

On Sunday afternoon a large crowd gathered on Edward Street at the CBS School and while they were entertained by the novelty of concerts and music from England, they were also privy to news reports provided by the Manchester Guardian Newspaper which included news of the Curragh mutiny. The Liberator Newspaper reported that

‘the broadcasting wireless system enabled Tralee people to learn of the Army trouble long before the Monday daily papers reached the town.’

While in Kerry, broadcasting was also demonstrated in Listowel and Killarney, two years before 2RN.

Harold Forster, The Art of Advertising 1920's Radio. The Marconi Hero

 

Today the real success of an advertising campaign can be reflected in how memorable their campaign was. Coca – Cola’s musical ads, ‘I’d like to Teach the World’, their reappropriation of Santa Claus from his original green out fit to the Coke colours of red and white are instantly identifiable, ‘For Mash get Smash’ or ‘It’s Martini’ are still fondly remembered. In the 1920’s the print media was the main weapon of the advertisers to reach the public but in the early part of the roaring Twenties, a new pretender to the advertising crown was making it way to market, radio.

 

The Marconi company led the way with innovation in both transmitting and receiving, producing the most popular ‘listening-in’ devices for the wireless. To deliver their message, the Marconi Company used the newspapers and trade publications. In order that their products stood out from the crowd, in 1923 they commissioned a series of drawings used in newspaper ads encouraging purchases of their radios sets. They showed how valuable they were to enrich the lives of those who invested in the new medium.

 

They contracted an illustrator and artist to capture the ‘joy’ of radio listening and his work created a sensation in the newspapers and for their readers. Radio became a must have. The graphic illustrations, portrayed in an art deco style were stylish, appealed to the emotions and illustrated how radio could make like better. Advertisers were selling a dream; the world of radio was elegant no matter where you were or what you did. Many of the Marconi portrayals were of upper class people in decorative, modernist settings, creating a utopia often far from the lives of working class post war Britons. The purchase of a radio set was far beyond the financial reach of many of those who were still recovering from the First World War. Homemade crystal sets were extremely popular with working class listeners. Marconi’s advertisements exuded luxury and created a theme that the new medium of radio would offer everything including music, weather forecasting and information talks.

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The illustrations displayed a modern affluent Britain. The surroundings are plush set in drawing rooms, with quality furniture and fittings. The men are smartly dressed, with nearly all of them smoking a pipe or a cigar. The women are drawn in elegant dresses and crafted hairstyles. The ballroom scenes exude affluence and a rich lifestyle and spell the end of the live music era replaced by music through the wireless. Radio is a unifier of the family unit as the drawings feature parents and their children, even the children enjoying the radio broadcasts with their grandparents. One depicts what appears to be a teacher and her children outdoors being educated by the radio broadcasts. In one scene a couple have gone to the country to have a picnic in their automobile listening to the radio while the enjoyed their moment yet if you look closely, they are not alone as another man watches on from the tree line. The radio set is shown as the perfect accompaniment indoors or outdoors.  The reality however for many living in the UK in the early twenties, all of this high-brow living was aspirational.

 

 

By 1923, the British Broadcasting Company had just been formed and had taken over the running of the various stations around Britain operated by wireless set manufacturers. On 18 October 1922 the British Broadcasting Company Ltd was incorporated with a share capital of £60,006, with cumulative ordinary shares valued at £1 each and six major shareholders,

The shares were equally held by six companies:

·        Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company

·        Metropolitan Vickers Electrical Company

·        Radio Communication Company

·        The British Thomson-Houston Company

·        The General Electric Company

·        Western Electric Company

Marconi was at the heart of transmitting and manufacturers radio sets. They wanted to cement their position at the forefront of radio, in a crowded field of manufacturers. Harold Forster was employed to produce a set of illustrations that would be used in the newspaper campaign for their premier product ‘The Two Value Marconiphone’. The campaign, which was broadcast at a national and local level, helped the Marconi Company maintain its lead as the main seller of ‘listening-in’ sets in the UK. The illustrations used in the advertisements had two different styles often used deliberately in the publication they were placed in to appeal to various classes. The more elaborate drawings appeared in national newspapers and trade publications, and often as half page advertisements while the darker, less crowded portraits appeared in regional newspapers.

 

Forster, in his late twenties in 1923, would have an illustrious career as an illustrator and an artist. He did not confine himself to the Marconi work, illustrating many products and brands. He was responsible for pre-war Black Magic chocolate illustrations. He produced a number of the famous World War Two posters commissioned by the British Government including the ‘Keep Mum, She’s Not So Dumb’ and ‘Forward to Victory’ posters. He would also produce iconic movie posters including for the Jack Hawkins action film, ‘Angels One Five’.

The Lough Beg Wireless of 1932

In January 1932 on a small uninhabited island in Lough Beg, seventy six year old pensioner George McErlain reversed the trend and built a wooden cabin on Duck Island where he lived a solo, hermit existence. Occasionally George, who became known as ‘the Robinson Crusoe of Ulster’, would row over to Antrim to attend church services. He lived by fishing and catching pike in the Lough. The Lough which is located just north of Lough Neagh was a major religious retreat.

His story made front page news as he went off grid as they would say today, the post office complaining how difficult it was to deliver post and packages to the island dweller. In a story on the front page of the Evening Herald on July 7th 1932, the article revealed,

‘Over these islands he rules like a king, without any subjects except the birds that know his sun-bronzed face so well and come unafraid, to his hand. He is more lonely than Robinson Crusoe, for no man Friday is by his side.’

But if, as this reporter did today, you row out to the island of the loneliest man he will run to greet you with a welcoming smile and tell you some of the blessings of solitude and the secrets of the islands.

In August one of those packages brought his story to international prominence when a woman who signed herself Madcap Madeline sent him a wireless set. In a note with the wireless set the donor said that she hoped the set would help pass away ‘pleasantly a few hours’. She said that she envied what she considered an ideal life.

We don't know how the radio impacted his life but it's arrival on the small island for his pleasure certainly gained column inches in the newspapers and periodicals of the day.

1922, A Radio First for Castleknock College

While the medium of radio developed quickly around the world, in Ireland censorship rules and military disruption caused by the War of Independence and then the Civil War, stifled the development of radio broadcasting in Ireland. The ownership of transmitters was banned and amateurs operated in fear of arrest. Some though did try to develop radio especially as it moved from Morse point to point communications to mass communications with wireless telephony. Many of those who tried to advance the growing interest in radio were the clergy who found safety behind the walls of parochial houses and monasteries.

One of those was Father John Ryan CM who taught at Blackrock College and at one time had Eamon DeValera as a pupil. On Wednesday April 5th 1922, he is credited for having organised the first radio broadcast specifically dedicated to an Irish audience. For that unique occasion, the event did not take place in Blackrock College on the southside of Dublin but northside of the city at Castleknock College. The broadcast caused quite a stir in the media and while it was an Irish audience that would be entertained the broadcast itself came from Paris.

 Over a hundred students and interested amateurs filled the concert hall of the Castleknock College. The lecture began at seven o’clock and according to a journalist who was in attendance

‘The Reverend lecturer " tuned up" and throughout the hall we heard " dot and dash " from Clifden, Paris, Nauen (Germany), Karlsborg (Sweden), Warsaw, Moscow, and from ships at sea.

A gentleman in the audience actually took down and de-coded some of the messages there and then.’

Ninety minutes later the Reverend nervously checked him watch and then with some small adjustments to his equipment on stage, that had been supplied by the dealers Dixon and Hempenstall. The audience at Castleknock College were now so quiet you could hear a pin drop, were suddenly startled and astounded in equal measure.

‘Suddenly there crept through the hall sweet notes of a French soprano singing " La Patrie" - A pause - Now a baritone's full notes resounded in an appealing ballad. - Another pause - An orchestra playing most tunefully delighted our ears. - Another pause - Once again the soprano sang, concluding with the strains of "La Marseilles." Then a gentleman's voice was heard to say "Bon Soir mesdames, Bon Soir, messieurs'.

Imagine our amazement. We had heard a concert transmitted by wireless telephony. Then came the explanation. Father Ryan, having often heard music by telephony at his station at Blackrock, conceived the daring idea of writing to General Ferrie, at the Eiffel Tower Wireless Station, Paris, to ask for the transmission of some music by telephony at 8.30 p.m. on April 5, as he would lecture on "Wireless" that evening to the Castleknock students.’

The Paris concerts were broadcast on 2600 metres, normally aired in the afternoons as amateur listeners on crystal sets listeners to music concerts from Marconi’s experimental station at Chelmsford, 2MT, in the evenings. Ryan believed that relaying an English broadcast might incite passions after the recent end to the War of Independence. He contacted Gustave Auguste Ferrié (19 November 1868 – 16 February 1932), who was a renown French radio pioneer and inventor and appointed a general in the French army. In 1903 he proposed setting aerials on the Eiffel Tower for long-range radiotelegraphy. Under his direction a transmitter was set up in the tower, and its effective range had increased from an initial 400 km (250 mi) to 6,000 km (3,700 mi) by 1908. He would later develop mobile transmitters for military units which would be used by the French military during the First World War. It was fortuitous that the Paris Station based at the Eiffel Tower had significantly increased its transmitter power one month earlier. Father Ryan requested of the French General that the Paris station would organise and broadcast a special broadcast for the Irish audience at Castleknock College who were about to enter the Irish radio history books.

Paris sang to Castleknock, and Castleknock applauded enthusiastically.

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.