The Archaeology of Irish Radio (Part One)

Across Europe and further afield the arrival of radio created a new sense of national identity and nations displayed their national pride by building ornate architecturally stunning broadcasting houses but not in Ireland. At a Transnational Radio Seminar in Luxembourg in 2018 organised by Andreas Fickers and Richard Legay, one of the speakers at the event was Maryam El Moumni of the Brandeburg University of Technology spoke of the Archaeology of Radio and I pondered what the Irish experience of this was. 

Radio arrived in Ireland north of the border in Northern Ireland with the opening of 2BE in Belfast. The station which first went on air on October 24th 1924 was originally located in a converted warehouse in cramped rooms. Following a decade of violent turmoil, a new Irish Free State turned its attention to broadcasting. Two years after the Belfast launch, a new Dublin station 2RN went on air. The studios were located in a terrace of houses on Little Denmark Street in the heart of the city centre with the studios linked to the makeshift transmitter site at the nearby McKee Army barracks. The Dublin station was followed by 6CK in Cork City.

The success of radio stations across Europe was continuing upwards and nations felt a sense of pride in beaming their transmissions not just to a national audience but transnationally across borders. It was often a sense of national pride which after the postage stamp demonstrated to the world that a nation was truly independent. Elaborate, ornate and architecturally wonderful buildings were being created across Europe from England to Germany. 

       Nauen Germany 1920                                        BBC HQ

                 Radio Normandie in France in the 1930s

When the decision was taken that a Irish Free State radio station would be state controlled rather than a commercial entity, a location was needed for the studios and transmitter. The overriding issue for the fledgling state broadcaster was the lack of finance and this would dictate what could be afforded for the launch. There would be no spectacular ‘broadcasting house’ built instead when the station was launched on January 1st 1926 the stations studios were located in the inner city of Dublin on a narrow market street on Little Denmark Street. Number 36 was a four storey over basement building constructed of concrete and steel with a red brick finish and slated roof[1]. There was single studio and one actor who appeared in numerous early radio plays Harry Brogan remembered that they used their coats hanging on the studio windows to keep the noise of shouts from the street traders out. 

The locating of the transmitter in a wooden hut in the grounds of McKee Barracks was for two reasons expediency and security. McKee Barracks named after Richard McKee who was a key IRA operative for Michael Collins during the War of Independence with Britain. He had been captured in November 1920 and after being tortured he was supposedly shot dead as he tried to escape from his captives in Dublin Castle, the then British Government in Ireland headquarters. Originally called Marlborough Barracks it was built by the British Army in 1888. When Ireland became the Irish Free State in 1922, the British gave the barracks to the Irish forces and named after McKee 2] .

The McKee Barracks Hut (c) British Pathe News

By 1928 the small and cramped Dublin studios had become unfit for purpose and the station and its personnel were moved to the first floor of the iconic GPO (General Post Office opened in 1818) on O’Connell Street with one former presenter describing the corridors décor as reminding him of a public house gentleman’s urinal.

JJ Walsh the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs announced in the Dail,

‘The station is in the McKee Barracks, and the broadcasting headquarters, or studio, as it is usually termed, is in Great Denmark Street. The items set out here include furniture and equipment for both places. Under the heading relating to miscellaneous expenses, which amount to £850, we have such items as postage, stationery, and copyright royalties. Copyright royalties in broadcasting are not only difficult of arrangement, but are also expensive. We have also under this particular heading provision for weather reports and news services, and also such items as we may from time to time be called upon to provide in the way of extra musical equipment, gramophone records, and matters of that kind.’

Now, it is intended that this sum of £14,385 shall cover the period up to the end of the financial year. Thereafter the broadcasting estimates will take their place in the annual estimates and be discussed as separate items. It is not intended that these estimates should be included within the sphere of the Post Office proper.’[3]

Following the destruction of the GPO during the 1916 Easter Rising, it’s rebuilding was not completed until 1928 and when it was reopened the fourth floor was taken over by 2RN, later to be renamed as Radio Eireann, who now had three studios instead of the one at Little Denmark Street. In the 1950’s two more studios were built and in 1956 six more studios including a continuity suite were added on the third floor. But the GPO was never designed as a broadcast centre and the station suffered from the lack of sound proofing.[4]

When it came to put a second station on the air, Ireland’s second city Cork was to the location for 6CK. Once again the station was to be located in a second hand building, the former Women’s Gaol in the city. Today the Irish Radio Museum is located in the building where 6CK was broadcast from. Work on the Goal commenced in 1816 and the building of the prison proper started in 1818, The building having been designed by William Robertson. It opened to prisoners on 1824 and became a women’s only prison in 1878. The Goal closed as a prison in 1923 after the events of both the War of Independence and the Civil War. In 1927, the upper floors of the Governors House became the home of 6CK.

(c) Radiomuseum.org

The major expansion for Radio Eireann was the installation of a new high powered transmitter in the midlands near Athlone. The decision was taken at Cabinet level in November 1931 to build a high-powered transmitter in Athlone. Since the inception 2RN wanted to be heard nationwide and the Government desired that Irish broadcasts and programmes should be heard further afield, to be on at least a par with some of the European stations that were now quite popular in Ireland. They wanted to counteract the broadcasts of 2BE and the BBC networks although the BBC had been quite helpful directly to the staff and management of 2RN. This included the relaying of certain broadcasts including St. Patrick’s Day broadcasts and sporting events including the motor racing from the Phoenix Park. A large powerful transmitter would be geographically located in the centre of Ireland. Engineers identified both Athlone, County Westmeath and Birr County Offaly as possible locations. In 1931 a site was purchased at Moydrum Castle on the outskirts of Athlone for the transmitter. The Department of Finance set aside resources for the building of the infrastructure and the purchase of a 100 kilowatt transmitter from the Marconi Company in England. A four hundred and twenty-five aerial was erected and when DeValera came to power in February 1932 a new impetus was injected to have the station operational in time for the Eucharistic Congress being held in June 1932.

The first Eucharistic Congress was held in 1881 under Pope Leo XIII. The congresses were organised by a Papal Committee for Eucharistic Congresses to increase devotion to the Eucharist as a part of the practice of faith, and as a public witness of faith to Catholic population at large. The 31st International Eucharistic Congress was held in Dublin, 21-26 June 1932. It was the premier international Catholic event. The 1932 Congress provided the platform for the Irish Free State Government of DeValera to assert their position as a leading Catholic nation. It would be the largest public gathering in twentieth-century Ireland until the 1979 visit of Pope John Paul II. There was even an act passed by the Government specifically for the event titled the Eucharistic Congress (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1932.

Congresses were often linked with anniversaries or other events special to Christians and in particular to Catholics of the country in which they took place. The 30th Congress which took place in Carthage, Tunis, commemorated the death of St. Augustine. The Dublin congress commemorated the death of St. Patrick, Ireland’s patron saint.

The new Irish State mobilized its meager resources in order to meet the challenge posed by this show case event. The arrival of the special Papal Legate, Cardinal Lorenzo Lauri at Dún Laoghaire Harbour at the beginning of Congress Week was greeted by thousands along the harbour piers and the Papal Mass in the Phoenix Park six days later was attended by over 1,000,000 of the faithful. The event was considered to be an outstanding success. The Irish State had successfully entertained literally thousands of churchmen and laity who came to Dublin from every corner of the globe to pray.

The Congress was a logistical nightmare for the under resourced radio station. The station carried out a number of major outside broadcasts from across Dublin for the event. These programmes were relayed by landline to Athlone whose transmitter was operating at sixty kilowatts allowing coverage over much of Europe and more importantly the powerful transmitter allowed for coverage across Ireland. For those with radio sets it was a massive improvement in quality but the broadcasts were relayed on receivers in churches and halls across the country allowing everyone access for the first time to listen to 2RN. The Congress marked the first time that the overwhelmingly Catholic population heard the voice of the Pope relayed over the Athlone transmitter on the final day of the Congress. Reaction to the broadcasts in the print media was positive and commended the station on their achievements.

The Athlone transmitter was officially opened by Eamon DeValera on February 6th 1933 but some complaints remained that the station was too Dublin orientated as the studios and all of the programmes produced came from the GPO Studios in the capital. In January 1937 the Athlone transmitter power was increased to the full 100 kilowatts. Radio Athlone began life on 413m but the Lucerne Conference altered that to 513m medium wave. With the opening of Athlone, the Dublin transmitter was closed down and the station became known as Radio Athlone rather than 2RN. 

The Athlone transmitter building (c) Joe Guilfoyle

Although no longer in use, the building houses the oldest working 1930's Marconi transmitter

On December 31st 1961 a new television channel began and Radio Eireann became Radio Telifis Eireann. The television studios were located at Montrose in Donnybrook. The site at Montrose was originally bought by University College Dublin in June 1949 as a University Campus but in a swap UCD moved across the road to Belfield and the State took over the Montrose site. On the land was a house once lived in by Guglielmo Marconi, the father of radio whose mother Annie Jameson owned Montrose House. Jameson was related to the famous distilling family before she married Marconi’s father. 

  

In June 1960 Michael Scott of Scott, Tallon and Walker architects was appointed architect to design the new RTE television centre at Montrose. Scott had won acclaim as the architect of the Dublin central bus station Busaras. The contract to built the television studios was signed on October 3rd 1960 with the Government, RTE and Michael Scott with the builders E Stone of Thorncastle Street. The company had previously built the new stand at Lansdowne Road. The studios were the first building in Ireland to use pre-cast concrete and flat slab structure.[5]

A 380 ft a self supporting lattice steel tower in the grounds connected with transmitter site at Kippure in the Dublin Mountains. Following a tender process the contract to build the tower was awarded to Anderson & Martin Capital Equipment in association with Huso Verft and Mek of Tronsberg Norway with an estimated cost of £20,000. Working on behalf of Radio Eireann was Chief Engineer J. J. O’Keefe, A. G. Tobin head of transmitters which were built by Pye Limited.

By the end of the decade the GPO was now unfit for purpose as a broadcasting centre and a new purposely built radio centre was to be built at Montrose after almost a half century of radio broadcasting radio in Ireland was to get its first dedicated radio studios.

 RTE on top, Illinois Institute of Technology on the bottom, 

it's hard to tell the difference

Ronnie Tallon (1927 – 2014) of Scott, Tallon and Walker was appointed to design the RTE Radio Building.[6] Tallon was an admirer of Mies Van Der Rohe (b.1886 Germany d. 1969 US Citizen) who designed unornamented steel and lass skyscrapers.[7] The architects had previously worked on the building of the Illinois Institute of Technology and there is no escaping the similarity.

Work on the Radio centre commenced June 9th 1969 on 8 acres formerly used as the sports ground of nearby St. Andrews College. The original budget was £650,000 but eventually cost was over one million pounds. The final broadcast came from Henry Street on November 8th 1976.

When new legislation in 1988 created an independent commercial radio sector for the first time a national licence was granted to Century Radio but like the early days of Radio Eireann, they were located on the floor of an office block across the street from the iconic and historic Christ Church Cathedral. Located at One Christchurch Square, High Street, the station went on air on September 4th 1989 but due to financial troubles was gone within two years. To get on air the station’s owners had purchased the pirate radio transmitters and site of Sunshine Radio on the Northside of the city.

       Mornington House, Trim County Meath where the studios 

and offices of 252 were located.

The Transmitter building at Clarketown, Co Meath

When the joint venture of RTL (Radio Luxembourg) and RTE on longwave 252m, Atlantic 252 was launched and located in County Meath. The stations studios were located in a three-storey period building known as Mornington House on Summerhill Road in the town of Trim. According to the auctioneers[8] the building consisted of

Accommodation: ground floor, entrance hall with ornate stairs to first floor, production room (sub divided into smaller offices), boardroom, kitchen with filled floor and wall presses. ladies & gents toilets. First floor, four offices, reception, three studios. Second floor, two offices, landing office, library and links room.

This was not a purposely built radio station but an adapted studio facility. The stations powerful transmitter and aerial system at nearby Clarkestown were the subject of a number of High Court appeals by local residents and an active campaign to prevent its installation and operation. After the demise of Atlantic 252 Mornington House was bought by Meath County Council for their own uses in 2002 for € 750,000

Pirate radio had a long and colourful past and some locations for the stations have included Georgian Houses in the Dublin City Centre, garden sheds, attics and caravans. While no pirate radio station built a purpose built studio and broadcasting facility some stations purchased portacabins to broadcast from as they were easy to locate and to soundproof. Perhaps the largest and most successful pirate radio station was Radio Nova (1980 – 1986) who were initially located in a Georgian building on Herbert Street on the south side of Dublin city near the Grand Canal. 

There transmitter site was located at a nightclub complex in the foothills of the Dublin Mountains near Rathfarnham known as Green Acres. Following a number of raids on the station and the jamming of their microwave link from Herbert Street to their main transmitter, the station moved to Rathfarnham where the nightclub was renamed Nova Park. Q 102 also broadcast from the basement of a Georgian House on Upper Mount Street until the closure of the majority of pirate radio stations in December 1988 when new tougher legislation was enacted and a new Independent sector was created. Other stations because of their illegal nature found themselves located in Caravans, farm sheds and garages. 

When the independent franchises were awarded the national franchise was awarded to Century Radio, who located their headquarters in an office block in the shadows of Christchurch Cathedral on High Street. Their transmitter network was leased from RTE which two medium transmitters and their sites were bought from former pirate stations Sunshine Radio in Dublin and ERI in Cork. Century was a short lived station, closed to due crippling financial losses but the two successful Dublin candidates 98FM and Capital Radio were launched in 1989. Initially 98FM were located in Studios in a shopping centre on St. Stephen Green, while Capital Radio was located in the former Q 102 headquarters in a Georgian house on Upper Mount Street. 98FM would later move to a former granary silo building on the banks of the Grand Canal while FM 104 as Capital Radio was re-branded and moved to the upper floors of an office block in the docklands. The floors would be shared by FM 104 and a legal Q 102 who were both owned by the same parent company. In 2017[9] 98FM would move once again moving to its parent company’s new headquarters on Digges Lane, known as Marconi House.

Marconi House in the compact office block on Digges Lane

The only indication that the headquarters of FM 104 & Q 102 are located in the office block are name plates on the front entrance intermingled with other renters in the building.

The replacement for Century Radio was launched on March 17^th 1997 as Radio Ireland from studios located in the centre of the city at 112 Upper Abbey Street. Radio Ireland was rebranded as the nightly successful Today FM and would be purchased by 98FM’s parent company Communicorp. Today FM moved to Marconi House in 2007 followed by fellow stations 98FM and Spin 1038. The quasi national news channel NewsTalk also moved into the building from its original location on the upper floors of an office block on Upper Mount Street. The building also housed the failed Phantom/TX FM before its closure.

In Cork when 96 FM (originally known as Radio South) were awarded the local franchise for the city in 1989, the station set themselves up in the former pirate radio station ERI’s location in White’s Cross. In 1991, a merger took place between 96FM and the Mallow-based County Sound 103FM and some years later, the station moved premises from the rural Whites Cross (the former Radio ERI studios) to a city centre location at Patrick's Place, in a building which was formerly the location of Christian Brothers College. The station named its new premises 'Broadcasting House', but this building name is rarely referred to on air, except by Emmett Kennedy in the evenings.

                                 

As a number of the local franchises became more established and their contracts renewed by the overseeing Broadcasting Authority of Ireland[10] they began to move from second-hand premises seen as unfit for purpose, to purposed built broadcasting centres. The stations making that move include Waterford Local Radio (WLR) who moved from a building on George’s Street facing onto the quays in the city to a building at Ardkeen. Work began on the €3 million 10,000 square feet project began in 2002 with the new studios the following year but the cost had spiralled to over five million[11]. The official opening was performed by the then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern TD The station sold their former home in the city centre to property developers[12]. With WLR in the broadcast centre was the youth radio franchise for the South East, Beat 102-103. The station claimed that their new studios were the first purposely built radio studios since the development of Montrose for RTE Radio[13].

This was an exaggerated claim as LMFM serving the north east franchise area moved into their purposely built radio centre in 2001 with the official opening performed once again by the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in January 2002. When the station opened first in 1989 it’s main studio was located in the Boyne Centre in Drogheda with a satellite studios located in the Navan shopping centre[14] and Williamsons Mall in Dundalk. For LMFM, with their success they could financially absorb a move from rental accommodation to a dedicated studio and office facility.

One of the most popular and successful regional stations was MidWest Radio based in Ballyhaunis, County Mayo. Led by Paul Claffey who had run the pirate version of the same station up to the new legislation in 1989, MidWest moved into new fit for purpose premises on Clare Street in the town in 2000, a decade after they had been awarded the licence on a ten year basis. The station when it was awarded the licence was located on nearby Abbey Street.

Highland Radio first broadcast in March 1990 with the franchise for the North West of Ireland. Despite a challenge to their license in 2014, Highland Radio has been located in the same premises in the Pinehill Industrial Park on the outskirts of Letterkenny. While the building was built as a storage area by the Boal family and never envisaged as a broadcast facility, the station has created a permanent location for the station in the building.

© Google Maps

© Radio Today

One of the few purposely built radio buildings in Ireland was that of Radio Na Gaeltachta in County Galway in 1972. When the Government gave the go ahead for the Irish language channel which would primarily serve the Gaeltacht areas, its headquarters would be situated in the main Gaeltacht area in County Galway. The architect firm of Nolan and Quinlan on Pembroke Street, Dublin were employed on the design and James Stewart Limited were awarded the contract for the build. The main single storey studio building consisting of three studios, two control rooms and sundry office space would be built at Derrynea in Connemara while a transmitter site five miles away was located at Bealadangan. The Government allocated a quarter of a million pounds for the building project and a further ninety thousand for transmitters. Satellite stations were to be built later in Kerry and Donegal.  

End of Part One

---

[1] James North Auctioneers description 1956

[2] Dublin City Corporation

[3] Dail/Oireachtas Historic Debates 1926

[4] The RTE Archive

[5] The Irish Times December 4^th 2010

[6] archiseek.com

[7] Free Dictionary

[8] Sherry Fitzgerald Auctioneers in 1972

[9] Radio Today June 11^th 2017

[10] Formerly known as The Independent Radio and Television Commission (IRTC) & The Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI).

[11] Waterford News and Star April 9^th 2004.

[12] The Irish Independent October 3^rd 2002

[13] Waterford News and Star April 9^th 2004.

[14] The Dundalk pirate radio station Radio Carousel also had a studio located in the Navan Shopping Centre

Chris Cary / Spangles Muldoon 1968

Chris Cary who passed away in 2008 is famous in Ireland as the man who revolutionised Irish Radio with perhaps the greatest ever station to broadcasting in Ireland, Radio Nova (1981 -86). He was famously known as Spangles Muldoon during his days on Radio Caroline out in the North Sea but on land he fell foul of the law in 1968 and 1969 when raids in London by the GPO detectors closed Radio Free London in August 1968. The following are some newspaper reports of both the raid and the subsequent court case.

The 15-24 Market Have Abandoned Irish Radio

With the release recently of the years JNLR figures for October 2018 - September 2019 there must be some concern within the industry in Ireland as the 15 -24 year old age grouping has abandoned the medium as newer platforms. The JNLR figures does not take account of some stations that are not in the JNLR sweeps including Spirit Radio and Christmas FM, nor does it include those who listen via station apps or apps like Ireland Radio and Tunein. But in the battle for the advertising euro this is a worrying trend in seven years. 

In Dublin and the greater Dublin area there has been almost a 20% decline in young listeners who now prefer Spotify or online stations like the current Halloween FM. There is also the persistent issue of pirate radio stations broadcasting dance music not heard on licensed radio. The effect has been felt even by stations that clearly market themselves as for a younger generation. Over the same period Spin 1038 has seen a 9% decline while crucially FM 104, the city's market leader has seen a 14% decline in the 15-24 year old statistics. The only station that has seen similar year on figures or slight modest gains of less than 2% has been RTE 2 FM. 

While the Cork numbers for the 'Listened Yesterday' in the 15-24 group was down 8%, the Cork 96FM/C 103 group were down 13% while Red FM was down 4%. There is no doubt as habits of the younger listener changes and the market fragments, the traditional stations are going to struggle more to attract and maintain listenership. For many younger listeners the stations have lost spontaneity as repetitive playlists and voice tracking have alienated that generation of listeners. 

Listened Yesterday 15-24 Year Old

                          National    Dublin    Cork     South    South   North    N. East    Multi-     Dublin

                                                                         East      West    West      & Mid     City     Commuter
2011-2012             80             76          84          78         86        84          77           80           77
2018 - 2019           70             57          76          73         77        82          69           65           59
                             -10%        -19%      -8%       -5%      -9%      -2%       -8%        -15%       -18%

Donegal Radio Pirates in the 1940s

Donegal has had a rich pirate radio history especially due to its proximity to the Northern Ireland border and the city of Derry. But the county's spot in pirate radio history stretches back to the early days of radio. Here are two stories from that early period.

In 1945, as the Second World War ended and the Emergency as it was known in Ireland was wound down, Radio Nuala was reported to be broadcasting on medium wave from the Beehive public house in Ardara in Donegal. Part of their complaint was that the Radio Eireann signal was poor in the area and that they were being 'bombarded' by the signals of the BBC's Six Counties Service. 

Some years later in 1947 a row between Donegal fishermen and a private fishery business about who had the rights to fish on the Irish side of the River Foyle from the Sea to Lifford would end with a High Court Case.  The local fishermen in an attempt to raise the finance to fight the case in Dublin and to highlight the issue within the community operated a mobile radio service to broadcast their message. They even managed to cross the border briefly to broadcast in Strabane in County Tyrone

. 

An Irish Pirate Radio Pioneer - AN OBITUARY

In July 2019, the esteemed and world renown pioneer of renewable energy Professor Godfrey Boyle passed away. But not only was Mr. Boyle the professor emeritus of renewable energy and the director of the Energy and Environment Research Unit in the Open University's Faculty of Mathematics, Computing, and Technology, he was a pioneer in pirate radio broadcasting.

On a number of pirate radio forums there was some scepticism and questioning that a pirate radio station could broadcast from a telephone box, but Professor Boyle and his then student friends were the pirates behind these broadcasts.

In February 1968, using a homemade transmitter, a tape recorder and an aerial attached from the roof of the phone box  to a nearby tree, their station was on the air broadcasting from the corner of Lennoxvale and Malone Road in Belfast (there is a telephone box still located on the site). The tape recording began with "You are now listening to an illegal broadcast and are committing an offence under the Wireless Telegraphy Act. We will now allow you a few minutes to switch off.' The operators knew and indeed hoped that it would be discovered by officials from the detection unit of the GPO in Belfast and used it as a publicity stunt in an attempt to liberalise the airwaves in Belfast. Their station broadcasting on 242m was known as Radio SRCIS and these initial broadcasts began a cat and mouse game with the authorities throughout 1968. 

The Belfast Telegraph reported that

‘No action likely over kiosk radio THE GPO were to-day investigating the finding of pirate radio equipment in a Malone Road telephone kiosk, but there is a possibility they may decide to drop the whole matter. A spokesman said to-day: "If this is the end of the illegal transmissions I doubt if we will pursue our inquiries. But if it should start again, we would have to give the matter further thought." The transmitting equipment. including a tape recorder and aerial wire extending from the kiosk to a tree, was discovered by engineers who toured the city yesterday using monitoring equipment. According to the spokesman, the equipment found in the 'phone box was a lot of "old stuff" of little value. It was probable the GPO would dispose of it.’

The incident was even raised in the British House of Commons when Sir Knox Cunningham, MP for South Antrim asked the British Postmaster-General Edward Short what steps would be taken to prevent the use by radio pirates of Post Office equipment in Ulster. The PMG replied "The apparatus was traced and removed by Post Office engineers" and added. "I do not propose to take any special precautions against a repetition".

Not deterred by the loss of their transmitter Mr. Boyle and his fellow students at Queens University just a short distance from Malone Road set up a rag week pirate station in March. Broadcasting on 235m, Rag Radio was on the air. The station’s signal was heard over three miles from the station’s transmitter located near the University. At one stage the police laid siege to the Students Union headquarters in the mistaken belief that the pirate transmitter was located there.

On April 19th 1968, the Belfast Telegraph under the headline ‘Ulster Radio Pirates, A Year on the Air’ reported that,

‘Northern Ireland’s radio "pirates" were on the air again last night and to-day a spokesman disclosed that they have been making illegal broadcasts in the Belfast area sporadically for a year. It is now believed that five or six young men in their twenties, mostly students, are behind the broadcasts and that their equipment is home-built. "The broadcasts began as series of experimental transmissions by people interested in radio. Then we formed the idea that we should be allowed to make broadcasts legally." said the spokesman for the group who. call themselves the Northern Ireland Citizens' Band Action Group. Recent broadcasts have mixed records with demands for new wireless telegraphy legislation to make available a waveband for the use of private citizens and to set up commercial stations. The spokesman claimed that the situation which allows the Government-run BBC radio monopoly is undemocratic. "People are entitled to run their own newspapers as a means of communication and there are commercial television stations. Why not commercial radio?" He said that incident' some weeks ago when transmission equipment was found in a phone box on the Malone Road was designed to draw attention to their ideas.’

Professor Boyle was born in Brentford, West London, to Kevin Boyle, a quantity surveyor, and his wife, Phyllis. The family moved to Belfast when Professor Boyle was a baby where he and his sister, Mary, grew up. His early education was at St Malachy’s college before he enrolled for an electrical engineering degree at Queen’s University Belfast, where he ran societies, published alternative magazines, and was part of radical activities in the University in a province that was on the brink of the Troubles.  In 1975 his influential book ‘Living on the Sun’ was published, which advanced the then novel idea that industrial countries could make a transition to renewable power.

Professor Godfrey Boyle, a pirate radio pioneer, May He Rest In Peace

1930's Irish Radio Analysis - Part Five. It's All About The Money

2RN, the fledgling Irish radio station stuttered to the end of nineteen twenties and into the thirties still only clearly audible on the east of the country. There were many problems encountered by the fledging radio station not least that lack of finance provided from the exchequer. Many of those in Government feared the power of radio and believed limiting the stations output would keep it in line. At the time Ireland did not produce any radio receivers of its own and all wireless sets were imported mostly from the Britain. In 1934 the UK media reported that,

‘The Irish Free State was Great Britain’s best customer buying £27,000 worth of radio apparatus from British manufacturers’.

These imports however were subject to a 33% import tax putting the price of a quality radio set outside the reach of most Irish people. If you could not afford an imported set, a homemade crystal set was the only option. With 2RN only audible on the eastern side of the country, the use of radio west of the Shannon was limited. This was reflected in the uptake of the required wireless licence. The radio licence was introduced in 1923 and initially cost £1 but this was reduced to 10s in August 1926 with the launch of 2RN in 1926 with a dearer licence required for institutions such as hotels. In 1923 there was 1,020 licenses issued, 1,493 in 1926 the year 2RN began and in 1929 there were 7,660 licences in the Free State. The state radio station was initially financed by the combination of the import duty and the licence fee.

The 1930’s there was a boom in licences and an increased effort by the Government to detect evaders. In 1930 just over 26,000 licenses were issued and the increased numbers of radio sets purchased in advance of the 1932 Eucharistic Congress and the launch of the powerful Athlone transmitter by 1934 there were 60,192 sets licensed and by the end of the decade there were 166,275 licenses across Ireland.

In 1935 the total number of radio licences in the twenty six counties was 78,627 which equated to one in every thirty eight citizens over eighteen having a licence. This figure would increase to one in seventeen by 1939. The distribution of those licences illustrated the divide in the nation when it came to radio. Leinster 60.03%, Munster 27.09%, Connacht 8.30% and Ulster 4.58%. According to the BBC, the number of licences in Northern Ireland at the end of April 1934 was 59,032 while in the entire 26 counties of the Irish Free State there were 51,667. In the six counties in 1935 there were 63,000 licenses at ten schillings per licence.

The comparisons with programming from the BBC often appeared in newspapers, magazines and in political debate. The poor quality of output from the Irish State broadcaster was often laid at the door of a lack of finance in a smaller market. During a Dail debate on broadcasting expenditure future Taoiseach Sean Lemass then serving in the Government opposition revealed in 1930 that the breakdown equivalents of both stations were as follows

2RN                 BBC

Programmes               45%                 65%

Salaries                       28%                 7%

Maintenance               10%                 19%

Overheads                   17%                 9%

It should be noted in the maintenance costs the BBC had over thirty transmitters in 1930 while 2RN only had Dublin and Cork.

Finance was always a concern for Irish Broadcasting. In 1930 the Government announced that it cost £28,259 to run the station plus a further £47,000 set aside for the launch of the new Athlone station. Income for the station was listed as £13,365 for the licence fees, £30,700 from the tax on the imported radio receivers and just £40 from advertising. Advertising consisted of five minute ‘talks’ at the end of programming at night. But in 1930 a new form of advertising was tested on the urgings of the radio industry much of it through the weekly magazine The Irish Radio News which had replaced the Irish Radio Review. Despite this apparent lack of income, in 1930 the Secretary at the Department of Posts and Telegraphs M.R. Heffernan TD wrote in an article aimed at improving listenership amongst the rural community,

‘Let me make it quite clear that so far broadcasting in the Irish Free State has not cost the taxpayer a penny. It is the other way about in fact. The broadcasting enterprise has actually contributed in a small way towards the funds of the national exchequer.’

Radio Eireann had spotted an opportunity to sell some of its airtime for sponsored programming. The bulk of the ‘advertising’ consisted of five minute ‘talks’ broadcast at the end of transmissions each weekday and solely for Irish made products. The Government decided to sell the hour from 9.30 – 10.30 to sponsors and it was divided into three twenty minute segments and from earning £220 in total advertising revenue in 1932, a year later the station had earned £22,000 from sponsored advertising, a lifeline for the cash strapped station. Unfortunately for the station its new found wealth came at a price as the Government reduced the percentage of the licence fee paid to the station. 

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1930's Irish Radio Analysis - Part Four. The Irish Language More Than a Cupla Focail

For an Irish radio station it was not until 1937 before the station became familiarly known in the Irish Language as Radio Eireann prior to that it was known as 2RN or Radio Athlone which upset Irish language activists. Despite the constant effort by these activists to force the Irish language centre stage by and the call for more native language programmes on the State station it would not be until 1939 before the first GAA hurling match between Limerick and Kilkenny would be broadcast entirely in the Irish language. All the more remarkable when we learn that a year earlier the first all Irish pantomime had been broadcast from Galway.

From the first inception of Irish radio, there was a battle by Irish Gaelgoirs to use the medium to rejuvenate and reinvent the Irish language and utilise the national aspects of the stations availability. English was the predominant language in Ireland and despite the best efforts of Conradh na Gaeilge amongst others to have Radio Athlone broadcast more in Irish, the native tongue was consigned to a second language and at times struggled for that position. Throughout the thirties the station carried linguistic learning courses in French and German. The Irish language activists became alarmed as the decade continued as the station began to broadcast a number of programmes in the universal language of Esperanto. During long periods of the late nineteen thirties there were more programmes broadcast in Esperanto than in the native language.

In the early days of Irish radio the Irish language supporters believed that the airwaves were not being used properly for the promotion of the native language. Activists initially wanted the state run station to be solely broadcast in Irish and that it should support National ideals and traditions but there was very little support from the political establishment who were unsure how to treat the new medium and were suspicious of the intentions of traditionalists. Over eighty percent of the station’s output was in English, the language of Government and the Irish language did not even make up the entire remainder as French, German and Esperanto all received significant airtime. Less than half of all music played on the new station was Irish traditional and this caused much debate in the newspapers of the day.

It was not until 1970 that a group of activists crowded into a small caravan in Galway and asserted their right to have a dedicated Irish language radio station on the air. Two years after those pioneering pirate broadcasts Radio na Gaeltachta took to the airwaves and has been broadcasting nationally ever since. In recent years other stations have provided programming in the native tongue including Radio Na Life, Radio Failte and local community stations across the country. These have been augmented in recent years by internet based Irish language radio stations. In 1989 when the Independent Radio and Television Commission perused proposals for the new commercial national franchise there was derision in the media when former pirate broadcaster Chris Cary (Radio Nova) in his submission advanced his proposal for an Irish language ‘word of the day’. This English born entrepreneur seemed unable grasp the importance of the native tongue on a national stage but fast forward twenty years and the national franchise now Today FM offers a thirty second occasional slot ‘creid é no ná creid é’ not far off Cary’s 1989 thoughts on the subject in 1989.

Radio Eireann in 1939 was the chief provider of Irish language broadcasting but this year would see four different stations in three different countries broadcast ‘as Gaeilge’. Vatican Radio aired Irish programmes at 7.30pm hosted by the Rector of the Irish College in Rome broadcast on short wave for the faithful in Ireland to listen to. In Germany, Nazi state radio began broadcasting in Irish on December 10th 1939. The presenter was Hans Hartmann and their propaganda was anti British and an overt attempt to reinforce Ireland’s position of neutrality during the Second World War. Covered in the excellent book by David O’Donoghue ‘Hitler’s Irish Voices’ Irland-Redaktion was heard on short wave and 395m medium wave. The station was the brainchild of Ludwig Mulhausen of the German propaganda department, a professor in Celtic studies at Berlin University who had visited Ireland especially the West of Ireland many times prior to the war. Also assisting in the Irish broadcasts was Adolf Mahr who had been the director at the National Museum.  For the first two years of broadcasts were delivered only in Irish but from 1941 until its final transmission on May 2nd 1945 the station broadcast both in English and Irish but aimed at an Irish audience both in Ireland and the Irish Diaspora in Britain.

The final broadcaster ‘as gaeilge’ was the IRA’s broadcast station which was located in Ashgrove House, Rathgar and began all their broadcasts with a speech in the native tongue usually delivered by Seamus Byrne. The station was raided and closed at the end of December 1939 bringing the decade to a close.