As I reach a milestone birthday on June 13th, let me indulge my passion by reminiscing about a journey that began five years ago also this month. On June 7th 2017, I organised a meeting upstairs in Brannigan’s pub off O’Connell Street to find common ground with fellow Irish radio anoraks with a view to the setting up of a possible pirate radio museum. A year later I embarked on a nationwide tour with an exhibition to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the introduction of the 1988 Wireless Telegraphy Act and the creation of independent commercial and community radio and television. The exhibition had a two-fold ambition, firstly to draw attention to the significant role in both radio and social history terms that pirate radio had contributed to the broadcasting landscape in Ireland and secondly to seek up the avalanche of value archives that remained in private hands. These archives from many of those who worked in pirate radio, would assist to draw a more complete picture of the impact illegal broadcasting made on the Irish radio landscape.
To direct attention to and to educate a new generation of scholars as to the breadth and depth of these illegal broadcasters. I aimed to gather as much memorabilia both audio and physical of what was seen as a golden era of pirate radio for a decade from 1978. The exhibits consisted of my own personal collection and small collections donated to me including those of the late Alan MacSimoin and Brian Reid in Cork. One of the centre pieces of the exhibition was a pirate radio transmitter built in a ‘USA’ biscuit tin by the late Sean McQuillan in Monaghan which was used by the writer Pat McCabe for his pirate station Radio Butty. The transmitter was generously loaned to me by the family of Mr. McQuillan in Clones, Monaghan.
The response and interest
was overwhelmingly positive. We visited
Tallaght (our first exhibition), Cork, Dungarvan, Limerick, Galway, Carlow and
at Dublin City University where it became the centre of press attention when
one of the candidates in the then Irish Presidential election and former pirate
broadcaster Gavan Duffy visited the exhibition. As an amateur radio historian and
curator, I realised quickly that the donated material required expert curation,
storage and digitisation. With the assistance and guidance of David Meehan and
Mark O’Brien at the media and history departments of Dublin City University,
the Irish Pirate Radio Archive opened at the Glasnevin based University. This
would be a unique archive in a university setting, as pirate radio is a global phenomenon.
The media launch took place at a press conference chaired by former broadcaster
Stuart Clark at Buswells Hotel in the shadow of the Dail.
This was followed by another unique event held at the Ballsbridge Hotel, an oral history day. Organized by John Walsh of NUIG and Brian Greene of radio.ie, the two men had set up the Irish Pirate Radio Audio Archive through their excellent pirate.ie. Over one hundred of those who found themselves involved in and launched careers through pirate radio attended the event and had their experiences recorded at the hotel. It was helpful that at that time Christmas FM had their studios also located in the hotel and these were used to record the interviews. The authorities at DCU felt that they would be unable both in terms of space and finances to offer a home to the audio element of the donations and that’s where John and Brian stepped in with their pirate.ie website.
Another curator of Irish pirate history is John Fleming at radiowaves.fm. John was an early pirate curator before taking a personal break but returning with a new and improved radiowaves.fm. Like those I have mentioned already, for many anoraks, as fans of Irish pirate radio, our go to fanzine in the 1980’s to keep up with station activities was ‘Anoraks Ireland’ created and run by Paul Davidson. Paul not only amassed a massive collection of photographs, rate cards, press clippings and publicity material from the many hundreds of pirates that at one time cluttered the Irish airwaves, but he also recorded thousands of hours of broadcasts across Ireland. He also accepted donations from ‘listeners’ across Ireland. This was a unique and invaluable connection documenting the diversity and activity of pirate stations.
However, with the pirates
closed in 1988 and were replaced by the independent sector, Paul, for want of a
better description disappeared suddenly from the scene and this unique collection
seemed lost. There were no more fanzines, no more recordings for sale and no
further response from correspondence with the Anoraks Ireland address. There
was speculation, especially with the advent of the internet and social media,
that he had moved house and that the collection was put in a skip, that perhaps
he had moved out of the country or worst of all had he passed away without
getting the recognition for his contribution to reporting on pirate radio
history. At various pirate radio enthusiast gatherings, there would be the
question ‘what happened to Paul?’ followed by speculation and a regret that
this collection was lost.
These discussions took place several times around the oral history event in Ballsbridge and it seemed important that I at least tried to detect what had happened to both Paul and his collection. What followed, after getting advice from a private detective friend on how to trace missing people, was a detective story worthy of Sherlock Holmes. Eventually my hard work and many dead ends paid off and in Christmas 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, I elicited a response. Paul was alive and well, living still in Dublin but more importantly still had his collection. After numerous telephone conversations, explaining to Paul what we were doing, how important his extensive collection would be, he agreed to donate his entire collection to the Irish Pirate Radio Archive.
I made three trips with
my daughter to his residence and collected a treasure trove of material. The
physical memorabilia would be heading to DCU in Glasnevin, with the thousands
of tapes to be divided and digitised by John & Brian at pirate.ie, John at
radiowaves.fm and some by the original Irish pirate radio archivists and a
massive resource for historians and scholars, the UK based DX Archive run by
Ian, Gary and Ken. These tapes are now being made available to the public, along
with background stories and context on the three websites.
As a voluntary effort, this is unique in the protection of invaluable archives in Ireland and immense credit must go to the archivists at the three sites. Media academics and students owe John and Brian, John Fleming and to Ian Biggar and the lads across the water a huge debt of thanks for their honest endeavours in the often time consuming digitization of C60 and C90 tapes sometimes having deteriorated over the many decades since they were recorded. Some of these recordings are now a half century old. But the work doesn’t stop there are we try to gather the strands of a complicated and colourful history of Irish pirate radio together. I acknowledge those amateur anoraks who collected personal archives and memorabilia and managed to keep these safe over the years and have now generously donated them, never easy to part with something so personal. Further donations have come from both North and South of the border. If you or you know someone who might have even the smallest collection of archives, get in touch. We can take them as a donation anonymously or they can be just loaned to us to be digitised. For many, these artifacts and memorabilia are an important part of their lives but it something that should be celebrated and recognised.
Personally, I want to thank
all those who have donated to myself, the University directly, to pirate.ie, to
radiowaves.fm and the DX Archive. I want to thank the three websites for the
tireless efforts to catalogue Irish pirate radio history, a golden era of
broadcasting and 73’s.
Please support the wonderful work of
John at RADIOWAVES.FM
John & Brian at PIRATE.IE
Ian, Ken, Gary at THE DX ARCHIVE
The Irish Pirate Radio Archive at DCU
