Irish Pirate Radio Audio Archive

20th September 202122nd September 2021

Fossett’s Circus on Galway’s Atlantic Sound

In the first half of 1984, Galway pirate Atlantic Sound broadcast a varied schedule of music and original speech programming. This is a clip from station founder Alan Russell’s magazine programme from May or June 1984. Seán Costello interviews Annie, a South African trapeze artist with Fossett’s Circus at Fairgreen in Galway city centre during a visit by the circus to town. It was recorded on a Marantz Superscope machine. Below is a longer interview by Seán with the late Teddy Fossett who provides a brief history of the circus before taking the opportunity to share some grievances about the circus industry. Seán attempts to wrap up the interview after 15 minutes but Teddy is in full flight about the competition with Circus Hoffmans from the UK.

Atlantic Sound interview with Teddy Fossett, 1984.

The photos were taken in the Atlantic Sound studio at the end of 1983 when the station had begun testing. A full schedule began in 1984. Pictured are a Canary 12- channel mixer, Technics decks, a JVC cassette deck, Sennheiser headphones, a Shure mic and the news reader’s desk. We thank Alan Russell for the donation. In the second half of 1984 after his departure, the station was re-launched as a ‘hot hits’ format.

16th September 202116th September 2021

Time World News Service on Atlantic Sound

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The Time World News Service (TWNS) was set up in early 1984 in order to bring the work of Time Magazine to radio stations around the world. A letter from the publisher of Time on April 16^th that year said that TNWS was ‘a new entry in radio journalism that will draw its material from the pages of TIME and its 87 correspondents and 32 news bureaus around the world’. TWNS was recorded in New York and broadcast in more than 100 US cities and 20 other countries including Ireland, where it was organised by the late Robbie Robinson of Sunshine Radio.

One Irish pirate station to broadcast TWNS was Atlantic Sound in Galway, whose founder Alan Russell recalls that they received a special delivery each month with the news features on cassettes.

‘From memory it cost £40 per month – a pint of Guinness was £1.37 back then and £40 would have been an average weekly rent on a good flat or small house’, he said.

It seems that the service was less popular than expected and was phased out from the summer of 1984.

The recording above is an edition of TWNS about the arms race and below is another edition about film releases. Both date from March or April 1984, were broadcast on Atlantic Sound and are donated kindly by Alan Russell.

15th September 202115th September 2021

‘Never more than a minute from music’: Galway’s Atlantic Sound

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Atlantic Sound began testing at the end of 1983 and launched a full schedule at the start of 1984. A report in the Galway Advertiser on 29^th December 1983 said that the station aimed to be ‘a fusion of RTÉ Radio One, Community Radio and Radio Nova’. Presumably the reference to ‘community radio’ was to the temporary local RTÉ stations on air at the time. Atlantic Sound’s founder journalist Alan Russell was quoted as saying that the station would buy equipment from the BBC and comply with the specifications required by the proposed radio authority. He added that it would not be a pop music station.

In mid-1984, after the arrival from Cork of two DJs with an offshore radio background, the late Keith York and Don Stevens, Alan Russell left Atlantic Sound and the broad schedule was changed to a ‘hot hits’ format. In this recording from the August bank holiday weekend of 1984, Seán Costello plays requests for mostly chart music and generic jingles are heard. He says that Atlantic Sound is ‘never more than a minute away from music’ and there’s a reference to a £1,000 giveaway but the thin commercial breaks suggest that the station was not making much money.

The recording was made from 99 FM and runs from 1858-1945 but is undated. Atlantic had moved from 1107 to 1026 kHz AM by this stage and had added FM. Thanks to Shay Geoghegan for the donation and to Alan Russell for background information.

12th September 202115th September 2021

The Pirate.ie Podcast #8: Our audio tribute to Robbie Robinson

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We’ve compiled an audio tribute to the radio legend Robbie Robinson who died on August 31^st 2021 at the age of 81 in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. In episode #8 of the Pirate.ie podcast, colleagues, friends and listeners share their memories of Robbie and his station, Sunshine Radio, which transformed the Irish radio scene when it hit the airwaves in 1980.

Many thanks to everyone for taking the time to remember Robbie and honour his legacy in this way: Cathy Cregan, Aidan Cooney, David Baker, Lawrence John, Eddie Bohan, Cathy Dunne, John Fleming, Lillian O’Donoghue, Paul Allen, Simon Maher, Kevin Branigan, Pat Courtenay and Andy Preston.

8th September 20218th September 2021

Robbie Robinson closes 3rd Sunshine charity auction

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This is the final section of the 3^rd annual Sunshine Radio charity auction in aid of the Central Remedial Clinic (CRC). Station owner Robbie Robinson (RIP) auctions one of that year’s big prizes, a holiday to Portugal donated by Joe Walsh Tours. He then calls the founder of the CRC Lady Valerie Goulding to tell her that Sunshine has raised over £22,000 that year. As the letter above indicates, by 1985 the auction had brought in over £100,000 for the CRC, a considerable amount for the time and evidence of Sunshine’s commitment to charitable causes.

Another item of interest in this recording is a advert placed by the Association of Independent Broadcasters in Ireland, a group formed by some of the commercial pirate stations to represent the sector. News at 9pm is read by Caroline Callaghan.

This recording was made from 2054-2132 on 11^th April 1983. It is from the Leon Tipler Tapes Collection, donated by Steve England.