This is a recording of the first day of Liberties Local Community Radio (LLCR) from 4th April 1986. The presenter is Paul Barrett and this is aircheck includes jingles and a helpful interjection from Brian Greene who informs us that the FM transmitter on 96.7 was running 50 watts. There’s a change in sound quality half-way through, when it seems the source was switched from FM to the AM transmitter on 1035 kHz.
LLCR broadcast from Weaver Square in the Liberties until the end of 1988 during which time it changed format and name several times. You can hear LLCR jingles here. This recording is from the Pirate.ie collection.
Jessie Brandon on offshore pirate Laser 558 in 1984. Courtesy offshoreradio.co.uk and Offshore Echoes magazine.
This is an aircheck of Radio Nova from September 29th 1985, featuring legendary American DJ Jessie Brandon who took up a job with the new offshore pirate Laser 558 in 1984. Jessie moved to Nova in October 1985 and was one of only a handful of female presenters on the commercial pirates of the era. In this recording she plays ‘the JAM song’, a selection of jingles made by JAM Creative Productions in Dallas, Texas whose clients included Radio Nova. There’s an interesting interview with Jessie in Charlie Connelly’s excellent book Last Train to Hilversum.
The recording also includes a promo for the new ‘Zoo Crew’, presented by Colm Hayes and Bob Gallico, a riotous breakfast show which ran from October 7th 1985 to January 24th 1986. Sybil Fennell is also heard on news but a bitter dispute between Nova and the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) had resumed by this time and contributed to the demise of the station in March 1986.
According to Nova fan Kevin Branigan, September 1985 was a pivotal month for the station. At the start of the month, Nova was powerful and untouchable, was giving away £10,000 in cash, still running easy listening station Magic 103 and packing out club night Disco Nova. By the end of September Chris Cary had closed Magic 103, fired the journalists, the NUJ was back on strike and big name DJs were departing for other stations such as the rival Q102. Magic 103 transmitters and studio equipment were sold by Cary to Q102, allowing it to surround Nova on the FM Band and with the help of ex-Nova talent, move into the big league. It was the beginning of the end.
We thank Kevin Branigan and Ian Biggar for help with information and analysis.
Chris Cary in a Radio Nova promotional photo. Courtesy offshoreradio.co.uk
This is a recording of Radio Nova boss Chris Cary presenting the European Top 40 on Sunday August 4th 1985. The hits included songs by Sister Sledge, Opus, Eurythmics and Tina Turner while Madonna was at Number 1.
The European Top 40 was broadcast weekly on Nova and compiled from record sales and radio airplay across Europe. The fact that Nova was involved was evidence of its influence in radio circles beyond Ireland. Cary credits Sybil Fennell as researcher and producer of the show.
The aircheck also includes news with Bernie Jameson.
An advertisment for MBC from Phoenix Magazine in 1986, courtesy of Eddie Bohan
Limerick really punched above its weight in the golden age of pirate radio prior to 1989. There is some good material online about the Limerick stations including a blog about Big L, Liam Byrne’s radio site, the DX Archive Limerick pages and our own entries featuring Limerick. This recording from July 1986 provides a snapshot of one of the city’s lesser-known pirates at the time, the Munster Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) which despite the grandiose name operated from a tiny attic studio on Catherine Street in the city centre.
17 Catherine Street, Limerick today. MBC broadcast from the attic (photo John Walsh).
MBC was linked to other Limerick stations Radio Vera and Radio Munster. A corporation it wasn’t, and it certainly didn’t broadcast to the whole of Munster, although there were some ads from Tipperary and they claimed to have three FM frequencies covering Limerick, Clare and Tipperary. There was nothing remarkable about the music on MBC – it was the usual diet of the Top 40 – but it was a presenter calling himself Will Rogers who made an impact during our short visit to Limerick in 1986. He did a lunchtime show and also voiced most of the ads and jingles in one of the stranger mid-Atlantic accents of pirate radio in the 1980s.
This recording is a remix of the Gay Byrne Show on RTÉ Radio 1 from 17 October 1988, the day that the newly-established Independent Radio and Television Commission published advertisements for the first independent radio licences designed to put the pirates off the air. Byrne seems dismissive of the initiative which would of course threaten his show’s dominance in the market, and appears to be imitating a folksy but clumsy pirate radio presenter. His kitsch portrayal of an amateur local pirate is part of Byrne’s theatre of the mind and evokes stereotypical illegal broadcasters of an earlier era.
Gay Byrne’s voice, remixed by Brian Greene with Queen’s Radio Gaga, was broadcast on Centre Radio in Bayside, Dublin 13 at the end of 1988 up to the closedown.
RIP Gay. Your voice was part of the soundtrack of our youth during the pirate era.
