This recording is of John O’Shea with a Sunday night oldies show on the popular southeast station Waterford Local Radio (WLR), which broadcast from 1978-1988. The programme includes requests from listeners, lost and found notices, a competition and a featured artist. Plenty of adverts are aired for businesses in Waterford and surrounding towns. Sound quality is generally good but there is some variation in audio levels, especially during commercial breaks. John O’Shea continues to broadcast on the licensed WLR FM today. In this recording, he is followed by Conor Halpin with the Guilty but Insane show.
Original cassette label from Anoraks Ireland Collection.
The tape was recorded from 99.9 FM between 2044 and 2216 on 8th August 1982. WLR also broadcast on 88.8 FM and 1197 kHz (252 metres). The recording is from the Anoraks Ireland Tapes Collection, donated to us by Paul Davidson.
CAU FM broadcast from the southside of Dublin for about 9 months between November 1987 and July 1988. Its origins were in a series of hobby stations in the Foxrock area set up by Locky Butler, which later became Phoenix FM. CAU was supposed to stand for ‘clutterfree and you’, reflecting the continuous music style pioneered by Radio Nova. Other Nova influences can be heard in this recording, including an echo on the DJ’s voice and a holiday giveaway virtually identical in style to a similar promotion used by Nova and KISS FM earlier in the decade. CAU had a professional signal across the city and used a slick jingle package. It was sold to the religious station Hope FM in the summer of 1988.
Original cassette label from Anoraks Ireland Collection.
CAU began broadcasting on 103.5 FM but moved up to 104.2 during this recording. DJ Tom Browne announces the change, which is designed to improve the station’s signal. At about 15 minutes in, the transmitter leaves the air and another station, Liberty 104 is heard – it would take over the 103.5 FM slot. Competition for frequencies was fierce in the unregulated pirate scene of the 1980s and smaller stations often had to move position if bigger players claimed more advantageous slots on the dial.
The tape was made on 26th March 1988 from 1149-1326 and is from the Anoraks Ireland Tapes Collection, donated to us by Paul Davidson.
Telstar Community Radio broadcast from in and around the Dundalk area between 1980 and 1988. Despite stiff competition from bigger local stations Radio Carousel and Boyneside Radio, it built up and maintained its own audience. The station was first located in Dundalk, moving south to the village of Blackrock in 1982 before returning to Dundalk in 1986. The main frequencies used for most of its existence were 1197 kHz AM and 88.5 FM. Telstar closed down along with other pirates at midnight on New Year’s Eve 1988.
This recording is of part of Dave Ritchie’s Friday night show, including chart hits and some oldies, along with adverts for mostly Dundalk-based businesses. There are news headlines on the hour and some notices, including mention of a local gig by British pop star Howard Jones. The tape was recorded from 88.5 FM on 13th March 1987 from 1830-2006. Another station is heard briefly at about the half-way point, possibly an earlier recording on the same cassette.
The tape was made originally by John Gartlan and is from the Anoraks Ireland Collection, donated to us by Paul Davidson.
Ranelagh Community Radio (RCR) was a low-powered part-time station broadcasting to suburban areas in the Dublin 6 and 6W postal districts between 1986 and 1988. It was a successor to Charisma FM, which operated sporadically from locations including Ranelagh in 1985 and 1986. RCR replaced Charisma in the autumn of 1986 and was noted on 98 FM in an October log by Anoraks UK. It claimed to cover the suburbs of Ranelagh, Rathmines, Rathgar and Terenure and broadcasting hours were noted as 1900-0000. RCR continued to appear in logs up to the summer of 1988 but closed at some stage between then and the end of the year. Both Charisma and RCR carried syndicated American religious programming at times and probably relied on such material for income.
This recording of RCR was made from 98 FM on Sunday 12th October 1986 between 1705-1835 and features mostly continuous music with short links and occasional jingles but no adverts. The DJ is Colin Russell but no phone number is announced for requests. The tape is from the Anoraks Ireland Collection, donated to us by Paul Davidson.
Radio North from Co. Donegal is one of Ireland’s longest-running pirate stations, operating under various guises more or less continuously from 1986 to the current day. It began broadcasting from Carndonagh on the Inishowen peninsula on 18th November 1986 on 1386 kHz, later moving to 1404. Logs from mid-1987 show that it moved to the clearer channel of 846 kHz, which gave it better coverage over a wider area.
Radio North closed down along with the vast majority of the other pirate stations on 31st December 1988 but its frequencies did not remain silent for long. The station was among a handful of pirates to defy the new broadcasting laws and continue broadcasting in 1989. Radio North returned on tape on 5th January 1989 and resumed live programmes on 6th January on 97.9 FM and 846 kHz AM, putting out its usually good signal into Britain, according to the Anoraks UK Weekly Report. Promos were aired to raise funds for the station’s court case against the 1988 legislation with £30,000 required, £10,000 of which would be provided by Radio North. Adverts from both sides of the border were plentiful but an address in Ballymoney in Co. Antrim was used for advertising in order to circumvent the new provisions banning advertising on pirate radio in the Republic.
Around 21st January 1989, the station was relaunched as Northside Radio complete with new jingles, promos and studios and a move to Redcastle on the banks of Lough Foyle. The Donegal Democrat reported that a split in the Radio North camp led to the new name, with the original owner Paddy Simpson deciding to apply for the north Donegal licence. Anoraks UK reported that listenership was obviously strong, due to a large number of requests and regular promos for public appearances of DJs on both sides of the border. In March there were rumours that the station was raided and the FM transmitter confiscated but these were not confirmed. On September 4th 1989, the name reverted to Radio North again when the original owner took back control, according to Anoraks UK.
Francis Callaghan at Radio North in Muff, Co. Donegal in 1991 (photo courtesy of DX Archive).
Around the end of 1989, a rival station, North Atlantic Radio was established in Carndonagh using some Radio North DJs. Both stations coexisted for a while but by 1992, North Atlantic was the only station still on air and had taken over Radio North’s frequency of 846 kHz. In January 1994, North Atlantic adopted the name Radio North again. Another variation of the name, Radio North 2000, was logged in 1998. DX Archive visited Radio North in May 1991, which was at that time operating from a caravan in the village of Muff right on the border with Co. Derry. In 2001, the station was taken over by Paul Bentley (RIP), founder and operator of successful Donegal pirate WABC, which broadcast intermittently between 1987 and 2001.
The authorities attempted to silence Radio North and its offshoots in the early 1990s but it seems to have been largely left alone since then. The November 1990 edition of Free Radio News from Ireland reported that all Donegal pirates were warned to cease broadcasting by a visiting party from the Irish Department of Communications and the British Department of Trade and Industry. According to local newspapers, the Donegal pirates were raided on 12th June 1991 but soon returned to the air, leading to a warning letter to advertisers from the Independent Radio and Television Commission, the licensing authority in the Republic. On 5th August 1993, the Donegal Democrat reported that Radio North had been prosecuted three times and was no longer broadcasting, but that North Atlantic Radio was still on air. The persistence of so many pirates in Donegal was a cause of some annoyance to the newly-licensed local station, Highland Radio.
Following a further change in ownership, Radio North has defied all the odds and continues to broadcast today from Redcastle in Co. Donegal on 846 kHz AM and online, making it one of Ireland’s longest-running pirate stations. Its signal is heard far and wide across Northern Ireland and beyond. MWLIST reports that Radio North has a power output of 3 kW and the station can indeed be heard well across Northern Ireland and into Britain, helped by the clear channel. It broadcasts a mixture of live and recorded music programmes along with American evangelist recordings, presumably to generate income. Radio North is one of two Irish border pirates that continue to defy the laws and the odds, the other being Radio Star Country in Co. Monaghan, which began broadcasting in 1988. Both are on AM only, which may explain why they have been left alone by the authorities, but even a cursory listen to either reveals that they still have advertisers and listeners.
Radio North’s caravan in Muff, Co. Donegal in 1991 (photo courtesy of DX Archive).
This recording was made from 1005-1155 on Sunday 8th January 1989, just three days after Radio North returned to the air having closed down on New Year’s Eve. DJ James plays a mixture of country, oldies and pop and there are requests and adverts from both sides of the border along with an appeal for donations to help the station fight the new broadcasting legislation in the High Court. The recording was made in Scotland and reception is fair with some electrical interference as would be expected given the distance from the broadcast site. We thank Ian Biggar for the donation and for help with research.
