Irish Pirate Radio Audio Archive - Page 124 of 160

8th June 202012th June 2022

Background: other Galway City and County pirates

Our series on the pirate stations based in and around Galway City in the 1980s includes Atlantic Sound, WLS, Coast 103, County Sound and Radio Pirate Woman. These were all from the final part of the Irish pirate radio era from 1984 to 1988 with the exception of Radio Pirate Woman which defied the new legislation and carried on into the 1990s and beyond. Like Dublin, Galway also had an earlier wave of pirates which paved the way for the larger commercial stations. Among those were Independent Radio Galway and Atlantic Radio.

Independent Radio Galway, broadcasting in the late 1970s on 199 metres (1503 kHz) was the closest that Galway came to a community radio station. Set up by Tom O’Connor of O’Connor’s television repair shop, it began on April 15th 1978 and was one of major pirates that emerged from the RTÉ local radio experiment of that period. IRG closed on July 28th 1979 following the establishment of RTÉ Radio 2. More information is available here. Surprisingly for a city with a long tradition of the arts and community development, Galway never developed community radio in the mould of well-known stations such as Bray Local Broadcasting (BLB) and North Dublin Community Radio (NDCR). Another early station was Atlantic Radio (no relation to the later Atlantic Sound as far as we know), which was due to begin broadcasting on February 25th 1978. As the report below indicates, they had big plans including transmitters in North Galway and Mayo and a separate city service, Galway Community Radio. The station gave an address in Renmore on the east side of the city.

County Sound was an example of a station situated outside Galway city which moved eventually into the city centre. Another county station, KFM, was set up in 1986 in the village of Moycullen 12 km northwest of Galway. Later it opened a studio in the city centre and announced two FM frequencies, one for the city (99 MHz) and another for the county (95 MHz). AM was planned but never materialised.

There was a remarkable similarity between the design of the KFM rate card and the one used previously by Atlantic Sound!

Other stations included West Coast Community Radio (WCCR) which broadcast from spring 1982 until July 1983 on AM only, with its aerial running along the terrace of Cloonacauneen Castle north of Galway before moving to a frozen meat factory in Roscam on the east side of the city. Among those involved with WCCR were the current CEO of Galway Bay FM, Keith Finnegan. Radio Renmore was a low-powered station (approximately 5 watts) on 100 FM which operated from August 1983 until early 1985 from the eastern suburb of Renmore. Set up by three teenagers, Gary Hardiman, Tom Breen and Brendan Mee, it broadcast during the school holidays and was known as Radio Snowflake at Christmas 1984. Emerald FM was an irregular pirate from Shantalla in 1986 as was WHYT which gave an address in Eglinton Street in the city centre. In 1987 another hobby station, Radio Impulse, was logged mainly at weekends.

Stations in Co. Galway included the very early pirate Saor-Raidió Chonamara which broadcast on two separate occasions in 1970 from Ros Muc, a village in the Gaeltacht area of Connemara. It was a pioneer in Irish language broadcasting and led to the establishment of RTÉ’s Irish language service Raidió na Gaeltachta in 1972. Further to the northwest, Connemara Community Radio came on the air in 1988 in the village of Letterfrack. It is now a licensed station of the same name. In the east of the county, Kandy Radio broadcast from Ballinasloe from 1986 to 1988 and Galway District Radio was a short-lived station in Loughrea.

Thanks to Brendan Mee and Ian Biggar for background details.

7th June 20206th August 2021

Aircheck: Women’s Scéal Radio/Radio Pirate Woman (Galway)

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Women’s Scéal Radio was an intermittent pirate station broadcasting in Galway from 1986 to 1988. It was run by the peace activist and feminist campaigner Margaretta D’Arcy from her home at Woodquay in Galway City. ‘Scéal’ is the Irish for ‘story’ and the aims were to allow women free access to tell their stories on radio and to campaign against censorship. The station continued in 1989 under the name of Radio Pirate Woman and continued to operate intermittently until about 2010. In 1996 Margaretta D’Arcy wrote about her radio philosophy in a book called Galway’s Pirate Women: a Global Trawl. This video, produced by Radio Pirate Woman, gives a flavour of an anarchic and unique station, undoubtedly the most distinctive in Galway pirate radio history. The voice of Margaretta D’Arcy announcing both stations can be heard on the audio track above.

Technical standards were not important and equipment consisted mostly of a microphone and tape recorder with women sitting around the kitchen table. One of those involved, Maureen Maguire, can be heard here. Margaretta D’Arcy boasted to the City Tribune in 1988 that it had cost her only £50 to go on air. The station generally broadcast for a few hours during the day and again from midnight, and also played tapes from or linked up with women’s radio stations around the world. As well as defying broadcasting legislation, particularly after 1989, it also gave out information about abortion and interviewed members of Sinn Féin, both of which were also prohibited at the time. Flyers for Radio Pirate Woman said it could be picked up only over a two-mile radius of Galway city centre. Frequencies mentioned over the years were 102 and 106 FM.

In 2014, Margaretta D’Arcy, then aged 80, served two prison sentences over her opposition to use by the US of Shannon Airport for military purposes. In 2017 she donated her papers and those of her late husband, playwright John Arden to the National University of Ireland, Galway. These included hundreds of cassettes containing recordings of Radio Pirate Woman. The launch was featured on the December 2017 edition of Wireless on Flirt FM which included an extract from D’Arcy’s speech describing the importance of pirate radio to the women’s movement.

7th June 202019th November 2023

Summer sounds on Galway’s County Sound

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County Sound went on the air on St. Patrick’s Day 1987 from Tuam, 30km north of Galway City on 98.5 FM. In January 1987 it moved to Prospect Hill near Eyre Square in Galway City, just across the road from rival station Coast 103. After the move, County Sound broadcast to Galway on 101 FM, on 96.4 FM from Abbeyknockmoy in the east (from where it covered the county) and on 98.5 FM to the town of Ballinasloe. The Galway market was highly competitive in 1988 with both Coast and County Sound dominating, ahead of the smaller KFM. Radio West from Mullingar, which had been rebranded as West National Radio 3, also had AM and FM relays in the city. On the 30th of September 1988, the local City Tribune reported on a row between County Sound and Coast 103 over use of FM frequencies. When Coast began broadcasting on 100.1 FM, County Sound Managing Director Benen Tierney accused them of jamming County Sound on 101. This was denied by Keith York of Coast who said there was enough space between the two stations. Gardaí were reportedly alerted after Coast alleged that they received threatening phone calls from their competitors.

County Sound closed at midnight on the 31st of December 1988. It was an unsuccessful applicant for the local Galway licence which was awarded in 1989. The successful bid was made by a consortium of local businesses, community groups and newspapers as well as the former Mullingar pirate Radio West which had already gained a foothold in Galway. The new licensed station was also called Radio West and came on the air on the 18th of August 1989. It was relaunched as Galway Bay FM in 1993.

This recording is an aircheck of Ciaran Wilson (Brannelly) on air on the 24th of July 1988. There are adverts for businesses in Tuam and Galway City, many voiced by Jon Richards who would go on to work for Radio West/Galway Bay FM. There is a promo for Tuam Festival Radio on 106 FM, a pop-up station run by County Sound in the town where it originated, from the 26th of July to the 10th of August 1988. There is also a competition for tickets to a Michael Jackson concert. Many thanks to Ciaran Brannelly for donating this recording.

6th June 20206th August 2021

Aircheck: Twiggs FM (Galway)

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Twiggs FM was a short-lived radio station broadcasting from the Galway suburb of Salthill for about six months in 1987 and 1988. It was set up in August 1987 in the Eglinton Hotel on Salthill promenade, which had been leased by two returned emigrant Galway businessmen. According to an Anoraks UK Weekly Report from October 1987, Mike Richardson, formerly of Big L Radio in Limerick and Horizon Radio in Killorglin, Co. Kerry, was also involved.

The hotel was a busy entertainment venue with a large 1,500-capacity nightclub called Twiggs and a popular student venue in the basement. The businessmen were persuaded by local man Shane Martin, who was a DJ at the club and had worked in other Galway pirates, to create a professional radio station to advertise their business interests as well as other services. Twiggs FM was set up by Martin and Dublin man Alan Russell, who was behind an earlier Galway station Atlantic Sound, and sound engineer Roland Burke (RIP) was also hired from Dublin. A professional studio was installed on the first floor overlooking Galway Bay. The station regularly broadcast gigs from the nightclub and DJs were paid for radio shift work and topped up their income with gigs at the Twiggs venue and other clubs run by the owners. Presenters included Roland Burke, Alan Russell, Ciaran Wilson (Brannelly), Robert Ashley, Shane Martin and Daragh Murphy as well as student DJs and guest DJs from Dublin. In January 1988 it was taken over by Mike Richardson and renamed West Coast Radio but the station closed by March because of the backers’ impatience with poor advertising revenue.

Twiggs FM broadcast on 98.5 from Salthill and later added an additional relay on 100.1 in the city. This recording is an undated aircheck of two shows by Ciaran Wilson (Brannelly) in the autumn/winter of 1987. The first is from a Thursday at about 1645 and the second from Friday at 1515. There was a definite student vibe to the station, with notices from the Law Society at University College Galway (now the National University of Ireland, Galway) and reference to a programme by the Regional Technical College (now Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology). There’s also a competition to win a bale of briquettes so the Galway winter must have been approaching! Thanks to Ciaran for this recording and additional background information.

5th June 202022nd June 2022

Full recording: Coast 103 (Galway)

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Coast 103 was on air for 18 months in 1987 and 1988 and was the last of the large commercial Galway stations of the era. It emerged from WLS Music Radio and began testing on the 10^th of July 1987 as Coast 100. The station was set up by Steve Marshall and Keith York (RIP) who had been involved in both WLS and an earlier station, Atlantic Sound. Coast was located at 24 Prospect Hill, the same address as WLS. It soon moved to 103 FM and added a 1 kW transmitter on 1566 kHz AM. According to the Anoraks UK Weekly Report, the backers were Keith York himself, another pirate station WKLR in Bandon and a number of Galway businessmen.

In April 1988 the Limerick station Hits 954 closed and merged with Coast 103, calling itself Coast Hot Hits and covering Galway, Clare and Limerick. The original Hits 954 AM transmitter was used to relay the Galway signal although there were problems with the antenna and power was never too high. There is poor audio quality on this promo for the new station, voiced by Stuart Clark, recorded from AM in Limerick.

Promo for the merged Coast Hot Hits, courtesy of Liam Byrne.

A chain of FM transmitters was installed between Galway and Limerick allowing FM reception to the south almost as far as Cork city and well into counties Kerry, Tipperary. The Galway FM transmitter, with an estimated maximum power of 3 kW ERP was brought to a higher location to allow improved reception to the north into Counties Mayo and Roscommon. The AM signal could be heard in Scotland but FM was the priority in the station’s last year. Coast Hot Hits was one of a number of stations to carry the satellite service Radio Nova International on overnights in 1988. It also made a number of successful outside broadcasts from Limerick and Galway. In the competitive Galway pirate scene of 1988, there was intense rivalry with the other big station County Sound. Coast presenters included Tony Allan, Steve Marshall, Stuart Clark, Brian Walsh, Ger Sweeney and Shane Martin. The station closed at the end of 1988 in line with the new broadcasting legislation. You can listen here to an interview with Ger Sweeney in which he remembers his time at Coast.

This recording, courtesy of Ian Biggar of DX Archive, is from the 1st of November 1988 from 1113-1200 and features Steve Marshall on air with Tony Allan’s voice on many ads and promos.