Irish Pirate Radio Audio Archive
Open Free Radio Archive
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Dublin station Radio Annabel featured a popular weekly Free Radio Campaign programme presented by Gerard Roe. This recording from 1985 features an interview with Chris Cary taken from Radio Nova in which he criticises the notion of community radio. It is followed by a reference to a newspaper article about one of the failed attempts to introduce legislation to regulate the radio sector during the 1980s.
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Broadcasts of Dublin station Q102 were disrupted in July 1986 by a mysterious ‘phantom’ who managed to break into the VHF link to the AM transmitter and disrupt normal programming on 819 kHz. Anoraks UK reported receiving anonymous calls from Dublin to say that the ‘ghost’ of Radio Nova was to return and later that day, Radio Nova jingles were broadcast on Q102’s AM frequency (Radio Nova had closed in March 1986). A person on a bicycle with a rucksack and home-made dipole was spotted near Q’s transmitter site but escaped before engineers could catch up with him. The ‘Phantom’ also called Radio West’s Sunday Anoraks’ Hour to threaten further disruption. This mysterious recording includes references to that programme and also cheekily edits a Capitol Radio jingle, changing it from ‘Move over to Capitol’ to ‘Move over Capitol’. This was apparent hint that Capitol would be the next target!
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This recording is of the main 6.00 evening news from Drogheda-based Boyneside Radio on 30th August 1988 and includes an interview with a representative of local residents in Clonlyon in Co. Meath protesting against the erection of a high longwave mast for Radio Tara in nearby Clarkestown.
RTÉ’s proposed joint venture with Radio Luxembourg, Radio Tara went on the air as Atlantic 252 in September 1989. It was aimed at the large and lucrative British market at a time when the UK had no national commercial radio station. Atlantic 252 was very successful in the first half of the 1990s but closed in 2002.
The recording was made from 98 FM and is from the Pirate.ie collection.
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This is an aircheck of the northeast Dublin station Centre Radio recorded from 2300 on 30th December 1988 to 0530 on 31st, the final day of broadcasting before the pirates were silenced. On air overnight is Bobby Gibbson (aka Brian Greene). Centre had just finished broadcasting a live variety concert from its studio location at the Mid-Sutton Community Centre. The decision was taken to broadcast through the night for the last time before the closedown at midnight on the 31st.
