Moate Community Radio, Local Pirate Radio in 1980s Ireland

As I research the use of community radio in Ireland in the 1980s for a new book, I discovered the stories of a number of the smaller pirate radio stations including Midleton Community Radio (their story in our next post) and this station Moate Community Radio in County Westmeath. 

The community in Moate approached RTE to bring their mobile radio station to the town but RTE were unable to accede to the request. As a result a FM transmitter was sourced and with studios located in the Carmelite College in the town, Moate Community Radio first came on the air after a couple of days testing on Saturday July 31st 1982 broadcasting on 104mhz FM. The station stayed on the air for just one week but it was well supported with advertising from the local business community. 

The station came back on the air in 1983 once again for a week, but by 1984 the station was not only broadcasting on FM, now 101mhz, but also on medium wave 210m. By now Aidan Higgins was acting as the station manager. 

The final outing for Moate Community Radio was in 1985 with the 210m transmitter once again on the air but the FM was now located on 103.5mhz. Their studios had moved from the College to a premises on the main street on the town.

Sources

Westmeath Independent

Westmeath Topic

The Irish Pirate Radio Archive

If you are affected by any issues raised here some of the helplines include

The Rape Crisis Centre 1-800-778-888

Pieta House 1-800-247-247

 

Raidio Carúilín - The Irishness of Radio Caroline including the Judge, the Port, the Owner and a Rebel

 

Sixty years ago, a Clondalkin born Dubliner, Ronan O’Rahilly became a legend and began a revolution of the airwaves. Ronan, who passed away in 2020 was the grandson of ‘The O’Rahilly’ who died during the 1916 Rising. On Easter Sunday March 29th 1964, broadcasting from a converted passenger ferry, the MV Fredericia, off the coast off Essex, Radio Caroline began regular transmissions. It would cause a tsunami of change in the broadcasting and music worlds. There was a large Irish dimension to the station because not only was its founder born in Dublin but the ferry was converted into the iconic radio station at the County Louth port of Greenore, owned by Ronan’s father Aodoghan.

 

Moreen House in Clondalkin where Ronan was born

In July 1964, when Caroline merged with another offshore pirate ship Radio Atlanta, the original MV Caroline was moved from its moorings off the east coast of England to a new location off Ramsey in the Isle of Man and was renamed as Radio Caroline North. It became an instant hit across Ireland broadcasting initially on 199m and later 259m medium wave. Noel, a brother of Eamonn Andrews, who famously presented What’s My Line and This is Your Life on TV, had been working as a sports reporter for Radio Eireann. He found himself broadcasting his first music show ‘The Andrews Live’ on Radio Caroline on Tuesday December 1st 1964 as Caroline was now averaging a listenership in the British Isles of 28 million every day. The first track he played was from fellow Irishmen ‘The Batc    helors’ who were now heading for stardom in Britain and managed by major Caroline investor Belfast born Phil Solomon. Noel proved to be a popular broadcaster with the housewives. He had previously been on Radio Eireann presenting the ‘Housewives Choice’ programme. When he returned to Radio Eireann from Radio Caroline, he was briefly relegated to presenting Children’s programmes.

 (Hear Noel Andrews on Caroline HERE courtesy of offshoreradio.co.uk)

When Caroline arrived off the Manx coast, their transmissions were heard across Ireland and with it an opportunity to grab some of the lucrative advertising pie. With this in mind, Jim Craig was appointed Caroline’s representative in Ireland and they opened offices in August 1964 at 27 Molesworth Street, dubbed Caroline House. Today that building is incorporated into Buswells Hotel, directly across the road from Leinster House. 

The holding company for Caroline was known as Planet Productions Limited with a subsidiary Planet Productions Eire Limited looking after the advertising for the stations. On August 1st 1964 in advance of the introduction of new UK laws, two directors of the Irish company, London based Richard Trapnell and Dublin born Herman Good resigned. According to the Pirate Radio Hall of Fame,

‘His friend Christopher Moore, a club DJ, provided the musical knowledge and having served in the Merchant Navy, some nautical experience too. Moore introduced O'Rahilly to a friend of his, Ian Ross. They met one lunchtime around Easter 1963. O'Rahilly told Ross of his plans. Ross was impressed by the project and thought that his father might be interested in investing. Mr Ross Senior worked in the city and was an expert in raising venture capital. That afternoon they squashed themselves into Ian Ross's MG sports car and set off to the family home in Haslemere, Surrey. By that evening the deal had been done. His father put in some of his own cash, as did his friend John Sheffield, chairman of the Norcros Group of companies. Together they and their firms put up over 80% of the launch capital - some £250,000 in all. Other investors included Sheffield's son-in-law Jocelyn Stevens, then proprietor of Queen magazine, and Dublin lawyer Herman Good. They all recognised the plan had potential.’

American born Chris Moore helped Ronan source the MV Frederica and when the ship had been converted into Radio Caroline, he was the first voice heard on Easter Saturday 1964, playing the very first record The Rolling Stones’s ‘Not Fade Away’.

The news of the resignations were reported in the Evening Herald on September 20th 1964,

The resignations of District Justice Herman Good, chairman and director, and Mr. R. L. Trapnell (London), director, Planet Productions Ltd., selling agents for Radio Caroline became effective as from August 1st it was announced at a meeting of the board of directors.

 

The interesting fact here is that Mr. Good, a solicitor, had been appointed as a temporary District Court Judge earlier that year in February 1964. His position as judge was confirmed in May 1968 when he was officially sworn in by the future President of Ireland Cearbhaill O’Dalaigh and would have been a serving judge when MV Caroline was being fitted out in Greenore and when he was director of Radio Caroline. It was nor Justice Good’s first brush with pirate radio. Following a raid by the Gardai on Radio Romeo illegal broadcasting from Clontarf in July 1965, in January 1966 father and son Thomas and Michael Rogers and Brian Clancy were charged with illegal broadcasting. They were defended by their solicitor Herman Good, he told the court,

‘This is not a second Radio Caroline’.

The father was fined one pound while the teenagers including his son were fined one shilling each. Brian Clancy gave his address as the Grand Hotel, Wicklow which was owned by his family.

Herman Good was born Herman Good Gudansky in June 1906 in Dublin. In 1933 he married Belfast born Sybil Wine and they lived on Merton Road in Rathmines. Justice Good would pass away in November 1981.

The station also pandered to its blossoming Irish audience by broadcasting Ireland’s Top 30 Chart Show compiled by the New Spotlight magazine from April 1967. The top two that first week were Sandie Shaw’s ‘Puppet on a String’ at number one and Sean Dunphy’s Eurovision entry ‘If I Could Choose’ at number two. For The Dubliners and Caroline "plugging" promoted success in the entertainment world. According to Luke Kelly, plugging made them one of the first groups based in Ireland to sell their music to the British public. Four years earlier they were just nonentity’s, folk-singing around the public houses of Dublin. Then with the assistance of Solomon, they could command fees of up to £6OO per night, performing all over the UK, including London's Albert Hall. The station created the Caroline Showband and in 1965 was instrumental in getting Longford born Larry Cunningham to become the first Irish artiste to enter the British charts and a subsequent appearance on BBC’s Top of the Pops. When the American singer Jim Reeves, who Cunningham had supported on tour in Ireland, was tragically killed in a plane crash, Sligo based solicitor Eddie Masterson wrote ‘A Tribute to Jim Reeves’ which Larry recorded on King Records with his showband the Mighty Avons. One of the Mighty Avon musicians was Jimmy Smith who would set up the very successful Dublin based country and western pirate radio station TTTR in the 1980’s.

On August 14th 1967, the British Government introduced the new Marine Offences Act to curtail the success of the offshore pirates. The radio ships and forts could no longer be supplied from the British Mainland and advertising revenue was restricted. This immediately affected Caroline South who renamed themselves as Radio Caroline International but North continued as normal as the Isle of Man Government held out against their Westminster masters until September 1st to ratify the new law, described in the Manx Parliament as Black Friday.

With the British mainland and now the Isle of Man cut from resupplying Caroline North, the Drogheda Argus reported on September 15th,

‘Another chapter in the Marine Broadcasting controversy began last Thursday afternoon, when a 40-ton Dutch tender entered Dundalk quays. Twenty four hours later, the tender, Offshore III, left the wharf laden with groceries for Radio Caroline. The supplies consisted of breed, milk, meat and vegetables, and were purchased in a Dundalk store. Fresh water was also put on board. It is generally assumed that these supplies are for the crew and personnel of the "sound of the notion" Radio Caroline North.’

 

In February 1968, the Dundalk port authority’s annual returns shows that in 1967, the port had 268 movements in and out, 21 of these in four months were made by Radio Caroline’s supply boat, making up 8% of the movements. The 40 ton tender Offshore III was owned by the Wijsmuller Brothers in Holland and arrived in to Dundalk to collect, fuel, water and food for the crew and equipment. Three tenders were operated out of Holland by the Wijsmuller brothers. 'Offshore I' and 'Offshore II' supplied the ship on the east coast of England while the larger 'Offshore III' supplied Caroline North. Prior to the new Marine Offences Act the Offshore III would load in Douglas or Dublin to resupply Caroline.

According to the Pirate Radio Hall of Fame,

‘Although the two Caroline ships were continuing to broadcast, behind the scenes, it was a tough time. The isolated DJs had to endure long stints at sea and dreadful tender journeys when they did finally get some leave. And, for the bosses, the financial situation was proving difficult. With the ships being supplied and crewed from Holland, the station's money problems were exacerbated when the UK devalued the pound in November 1967. With only a limited income, bills weren't paid on time and, as the months passed, a substantial debt built up with the Wijsmuller tug and salvage company. This firm was responsible for crewing and servicing the two radio ships and, as the money owed reached £70,000, one of the Wijsmuller brothers decided that enough was enough. In an effort to get his money, he ordered his men to impound the two Caroline vessels. On March 2nd 1968 Caroline North's programming finished, as usual on a Saturday, with the late ‘Daffy’ Don Allen’s ‘Country & Western Jamboree’. Canadian born Don would be found later broadcasting on numerous Irish pirate radio stations including Radio West in Mullingar and even had a show on RTE FM3, the forerunner of Lyric FM. Soon after the station closed for the night the ship was boarded by men working for Wijsmuller. Caroline North never returned to the air, the ship was towed by the Wijsmuller tug Utrecht.

 

In November 1968 before the High Court in Dublin a winding up order was placed before Mr. Justice Kenny to wind up Planet Productions Limited moving all Caroline’s operations abroad.

Caroline still broadcasts from the Ross Revenge ship off the East coast of England but is now licensed but the music style and ethos is still the same and can be heard clearly at night in Ireland on 648khz.

 

Radio Caroline revolutionized radio for a generation, shining a light on a dark world. It led to the creation of BBC Radio 1 to compete for the ever-growing audience of young listeners. It provided an outlet for new music and it gave enjoyment to millions. There’s a reverence for what Caroline was. It was a rebel, it was an influencer, it was a genuine attempt to provide the listening public with what they wanted to hear.

 

In Ireland, Caroline opened up the possibility of an alternative to State media, and while we never had a pirate radio ship broadcasting into the country, Caroline’s success created a community of pirate radio pioneers across Ireland (some using the Caroline moniker in homage) and this pirate radio tidal wave eventually in the seventies and eighties, created the radio industry that broadcasts today.

Sources

The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame

DX Archive

World Radio History

The 1965 Radio Caroline Annual

The Irish Newspaper Archives

The British Newspaper Archives

National Inventory of Architectural Heritage Ireland

The Irish National Archives

Offshore Radio

Paul Rusling

Ancestry.com

When Listening to Radio Caroline Brought You To An Irish Court

When Mrs. Kathleen Durnin from Dunleer in County Louth tuned into the offshore pirate radio station Radio Caroline in February 1965 little did she know she would appear in an Irish court just weeks later, and she wouldn’t be the only one. When the MV Caroline travelled from the North Sea to a new anchorage off Ramsey in the Isle of Man, Radio Caroline’s popularity across Ireland soared to new heights.

As she listened, she heard the ‘Ognib Show’ hosted by the comic actor Charlie Drake. ‘Ognib’ was the reversal of the word Bingo. Bingo via the radio became a new and popular phenomenon and Irish listeners like Mrs. Durnin were hooked.

One of the most popular radio bingo programmes, also heard loud and clear in Ireland was Radio Luxembourg’s, ‘Postal Bingo Show’ that was linked to the Durham Postal Bingo operated by Derek Killingsworth Armstrong. The Bingo had at its height in early 1965, 100,000 people playing every week, posting in a postal order for 3/6 to participate.

Irish fans of Radio Luxembourg’s show included Katherine Hickey from Waterford, James Byrne in Camolin, Patrick Corless in Clare, Maura Delaney in Ardee and Robert Thornton in County Leitrim. But despite the popularity of Radio Caroline and Luxembourg, troubled waters lay ahead for the Irish listeners.

 

In March 1964, James Byrne posted an envelope to Durham containing a 3/6 postal order to take part in the airwaves game but his letter was intercepted by the Irish postal authorities in Dublin Castle, opened and he then received the dreaded knock to his front door. The Gardai were there. He failed to realize that under Section 34 of the Gaming and Lotteries Act 1956, ‘It is illegal to send money to a lottery outside the jurisdiction’.

The visit of the Garda meant a trip to court where the Judge took into account that he did not know it was illegal to send money abroad to participate in lotteries such as ‘Bingo’. Byrne was given the probation act but in a strange piece of Irish legislation, the State were not allowed to hold onto the evidence and the postal order was retuned to Mr. Byrne. In April 1964 Patrick Corless from Ruan, Co. Clare another listener to Radio Luxembourg told the court that he could win up to £ 8,500 on a full house. There were postal bingo games in Ireland but the prize fund was little more than a couple of hundred pounds and not the thousands that could be won on radio bingo. Patrick Corless too ended up in court in Ennis and was handed the Probation Act.

 

In August 1964 Katherine Hickey from Waterford had her 3/6 postal order intercepted by the Post Office which was being sent to Durham Postal Bingo Listening to Radio Luxembourg. In Court the judge gave her the Probation Act at Dungarvan Court and sentenced to listen to Radio Eireann. Maura Delaney from Ardee was the recipient of the Probation Act from Justice Rochford in December 1964

On February 20^th 1965, Mrs Kathleen Durnin from Dunleer who had also been caught posting a 3/6 postal order to Durham Postal Bingo told the court that,

‘It was the result of listening to a commercial on Radio Caroline’

She too had the Probation Act applied and had her postal order returned

It was not just the East coast listeners that were listening and attempting to participate, in April 1965 Robert Thornton from Dromod appeared at Rooskey Court before Mr Justice PJ Loftus. Once again, the probation act was applied and his two Postal orders returned.

But it was not just in the Irish courts that radio bingo games were about to suffer setbacks. In June 1965 the British House of Lords ruled that under the 1934 Betting Act, the Durham Postal Bingo contravened that act. According to the University of Kent’s Bingo Report the House of Lords,

‘Upheld the conviction of the proprietor of a postal bingo club for running an illegal lottery, on the grounds that buying a ticket in this form of bingo was not participation in a game. The postal bingo involved 300,000 players. Results were announced in a dedicated bingo programme on the pirate radio station Radio Luxembourg and published in the cult magazine Tit Bits. Again winners were contacted and notified without having to claim; again the court held that there was no gaming, since there was no participation in a game and no assembly of players.’

Despite that setback and the disappearance from Luxembourg’s schedule offshore pirate Radio Scotland revived the game with significantly lower prize money.

Sources

Offshore Echos Magazine

DX Archive

The University of Kent

The Irish Newspaper Archives

The British Newspaper Archives

Hansard, The House of Lords

The National Archives of Ireland

Radio Luxembourg 208 Archives

(c) The Irish Pirate Radio Archive

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.

The Time For A Dedicated Independent Irish Radio Archive is NOW

 

We have harvested wood and bogs to heat and cook, we’ve tamed rivers to provide electricity and now we have harnessed the wind, the oceans, and the sun to create renewable energy but the ether has been a natural resource that we’ve utilized successfully, using it to communicate and entertain ourselves for over a century. The radio waves that help us land planes on the Aran Islands and listen to the Cranberries have also been harnessed. According to the most recent JNLR ratings 80.2% of the adult Irish population listen to Irish radio every day. It is our heritage.

 

Our love affair with radio has propelled Irish radio history onto a global stage. From Marconi’s Irish mother encouraging her son to experiment, to the rebels of 1916 ensuring that Ireland became the first nation in the world to be declared by radio to Clondalkin born Ronan O’Rahilly helping to revolutionise radio with his Radio Caroline, we have a rich tapestry in radio and it continues to evolve from analogue to digital to online.

 

 We are now entering a celebration of Irish radio milestones. 1923 and Ireland’s first licensed radio station 2BP takes to the airwaves, 2BE is launched by the BBC in Belfast in 1924, the new Free State inaugurates 2RN in 1926, while Cork sees the arrival of 6CK in 1927 and 1932 sees radio take the Eucharistic Congress to a global audience.

 

Are we remiss in not exhibiting our immense radio history? How will scholars of the future discover how and why in this modern age of social media that analogue radio listenership is still over eighty percent? Unlike many nations of a comparable size, Ireland does not have a centralised radio archive or museum both open to both donations and research. Our disregard of our broadcasting heritage is shameful. The memories of those in front and behind the microphone seems lost in the mists of time.

 

The largest radio and audio archive is RTE’s. While not complete, the only recorded snippet of the opening nights broadcast comes courtesy of the BBC who rebroadcast part of the opening night to the UK, it is an invaluable resource but spending cuts within the broadcaster has seen its staffing levels and importance reduced. An independently funded body should be put in charge of maintaining, updating and making available all radio archives, including RTE, commercial, local and community radio.

 

We have the archives; it is scattered to the four corners of the island. We have a unique collection of invaluable Irish radio artifacts gathering dust on shelves in the Cork City Gaol Museum, a passion of the late Paddy Clarke, degrading as I write this impassioned plea. Without County Louth born Fr. Nicholas Callan and his work on the induction coil in the mid-19th century, Marconi may not have ended up leaving Italy, his archives are in Maynooth University. Without the work of the Irish Radio Transmitters Society to save the work of Colonel Meade Dennis, the world’s first radio ham, another remarkable story would be lost. His equipment was donated to the Computer and Communications Museum at NUIG. The RTE scripts of the past are located at UCD. The Hurdy Gurdy Museum in Howth, a personal achievement of the late Pat Herbert is a treasure trove of Irish radio history. The Irish Pirate Radio Archive is located at Dublin City University. There is the RTE archive, totally under resourced and haemorrhaging staff, a massive an invaluable archive unfortunately for scholars hidden behind a pay wall. There are the archives of the independent sector for which limited Sound and Vision grant money is available. The archives of at first the IRTC, then the BCI, later BAI and now Coimisiún na Meán are a vital thread to understanding and studying Irish radio history. This scattered approach is diffused and disorganised and without a centralised online guide. Our radio archives physical and audio should be housed in a dedicated sound and audio archive like the Centre National de L’Audiovisuel in Luxembourg or the German Broadcasting Archive.

 

Whether its Clifden in 1907, O’Connell Street in 1916, 2BP’s broadcasts in 1923. 2RN in 1926, Radio Caroline in 1964, Radio Nova in 1981, Atlantic 252 in 1989 or Christmas FM in 2008, the physical and audio archives should be centralised so that those who have kept safe their treasures over the decades have somewhere to donate their collections. There should be strategic policy developed for Irish radio archiving and history protection.

 

With the GPO relocating its offices from O’Connell Street to The Point, perhaps the GPO could be used to house a unique collection of radio memorabilia, artefacts, archives, and audio. We need action now as each and every day new material is created, new memories are made and yet voices are lost.

IRISH PIRATE RADIO BLOOPERS

We have all watched TV shows like 'It'll Be Alright On The Night' or 'TV Bloopers & Practical Jokes' but on radio you can also have bloopers and even Irish pirate radio had its own fair share. With thanks to John Kenny's audio donation to the Irish Pirate Radio Archive at DCU, here are a selection of  those bloopers from recording advertisment disasters to stings gone wrong, they are all here. These come mainly from South Coast Radio in Cork and Q102 in Dublin.

    BE WARNED THESE RECORDING DO CONTAIN BAD LANGUAGE THROUGHOUT

 

A View From The Emerald Isle of France's Diamond, Mylene Farmer

 Mylene Farmer Concert Review

This is slightly different to my usual radio blog posts but in a round about way it is about the power of radio. During the Covid lockdown I listened to online radio from around the world and especially after the passing of another favourite artist of mine Johnny Halliday, I thankfully discovered Mylene Farmer and I fell in love with her music, her live performances and I became a big fan thanks to radio. The next logic.al step was to travel to see her magic on stage.

I've also written this as a personal memory was Youtube took down the video I had made to commemorate my time at the concert. 

There are not many artists that could get me onto a flight from Dublin to beautiful but extremely hot Bordeaux but Canadian born and the belle of France, Mylene Farmer did just that. Her Nevermore 2023 tour, in support of the release of her L'Emprise album, was her first since Timeless in 2013. A Stadium tour, comprising of fourteen stadiums across Europe, sold out, with over half a million tickets sold. On Bastille Day, July 14th, she arrived at the Mamhut Atlantique stadium for the first of two sell out shows. 

Firstly, the only negative comment about the show, the chaos of the queues to get into the stadium was a disorganized mess for both French and non-native visitors alike, shockingly bad. Enough of the negatives. As the night drew in at 9.15pm, the giant screen came to life and like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's Birds, a conspiracy of ravens, the theme of the staging, filled the screen. The crowd stood and roared their approval. Then the flame-haired raven herself, Mylene appeared centre stage, with the screen projecting her possessing wings of her own. She then began a two and a quarter hour marathon of tracks from 'L'Emprise' and her greatest hits.

 

I may not be fluent in French, I've enough to have an argument in a shoe shop, but the music, the pure voice not showing any signs of decline as she moves into her sixties, the theatrics, the dancers and the quality musicians by her side including her long-standing keyboard player Yvan Cassar made this one of the best concerts I was ever at. Mylene oversees much of the design of her shows and with the lighting, the theatrics, including giant arms that swung her out over the crowd and the cross shaped runway projecting from the stage all driving this juggernaut of a show career through at breakneck speed.

With the audience in the palm of her hand, she became quite emotional as the crowd serenaded the lady in the middle during her rendition of 'Rever' (Dreaming). The hits were all there, 'Libertine' ,'C'est une Belle Journee' (It's A Beautiful Day) and 'XXL' along with new tracks, a duet with aAron on Rayon Vert' (Green Ray),'A Tout Jamais' (Forever) before finishing two and a quarter hours later with her greatest hit 'Desenchantee' (Disenchanted) by and an encore of 'Rallumer Les Etoiles' (Rekindling the Stars).

 

And with that Mylene was into her people carrier and gone. Finally to put the opening negative into a positive, the exit from the stadium was excellent, as a fleet of free shuttle buses took thousands back into the centre of Bordeaux where the fireworks, music and dancing continued into the wee small hours of the morning. If you are unfamiliar with Mylene's work I highly recommend her Timeless 2013 concert on YouTube. Magnifique!!!!

 

Finally I’ll get to enjoy Mylene once more when I head to Paris for October 1^st 2024. Until then I have Mylene’s duet with Moby on loop as it is an instant classic.

Mylene’s Irish Fanclub