Irish Pirate Radio Audio Archive

28th October 202223rd October 2022

South Coast Top 40 with Siobhán Walls

This is Siobhán Walls presenting the South Coast Top 40 on Saturday 9^th October 1982. The recording begins at 1400 and is partially edited. It was recorded from 104 FM in mono and audio quality is fair with some distortion in places.

Siobhán’s radio career spanned both pirates and legal stations. She was involved in the early days of Sunshine Radio in Dublin, reading her first news bulletin on 25^th November 1980. She was appointed Head of News in Sunshine in November 1981 and also did a late-night show at weekends. In August 1982, she moved to South Coast Radio and would later work in another big Cork station, ERI. In the licensed era, Siobhán presented a late night show on the doomed national independent station Century Radio (1989-1991) and worked in television production in the 1990s. She is now a celebrant with the Humanist Association of Ireland. Thanks to Lillian O’Donoghue for background information and the recording.

26th October 202226th October 2022

Evening show on WLS from Galway

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This recording of Galway pirate WLS dates from summer 1986, when the station was well established as the city’s main local broadcaster. Paul Vincent (aka Brendan Mee) presents a late-night show and adverts feature a mixture of local businesses and national companies. There’a also a promo for fellow DJ Richie O’Shea doing a local disco. The station identification at the top of the hour claims that the ‘West’s local station’ is growing with Galway.

The recording was made from 102.7 FM on 5^th July 1986 from 2217-2303. There is some wobble in places due to the age of the cassette. Thanks to Brendan Mee for the donation.

24th October 202226th May 2024

Cut Price Gold competition on KISS FM

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One of the many stations called KISS FM during the pirate era was based in Foley Street in the north inner city of Dublin and broadcast from May 1985 until October 1986. This KISS FM was owned by two German businessmen based in Cavan and managed by well-known broadcaster David Baker. The station had promise and many professional DJs, including Eamonn Kelly who is heard in this recording presenting the drivetime show on 19^th December 1985. Eamonn was heard previously on other big stations such as ERI in Cork and Q102 in Dublin. In recent years, he has worked with Smooth Radio in the UK. KISS FM closed following a raid in October 1986, an event documented in detail in the book Radio Radio by Peter Mulryan (1988).

The show includes a competition for jewellery from Cut Price Gold who were heavily advertising on KISS FM at the time. Another interesting feature is the impressive range of adverts including local shops, larger businesses including McDonald’s, Penney’s, Philips audio, Cadbury’s, drinks companies and various record releases. Traffic news is courtesy of a courier company and ‘Associated Network News’ is read by Noelle Hayes.

Audio quality on the recording is fair. It sounds more like AM but the station’s 1116 kHz AM transmitter was shortlived and probably off-air at this time. The cassette label mentions 104.1 FM in mono (94 and 104.7 are announced on air). The times logged are incorrect: Part 1 above runs from 1616-1701 and Part 2 below from 1710-1755.

Part 2 from 1710

This recording is from the Anoraks Ireland Tapes Collection, donated to us by Paul Davidson.

19th October 202217th October 2022

Cork’s South Coast Radio Top 40

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In its first year on air, Cork’s popular new station South Coast Radio broadcast its own Top 40 on Saturday afternoons with a repeat on Tuesday nights. This show from Saturday 19^th June 1982 is presented by Pete O’Neill, who is standing in for Mark Lawrence. The usual mix of local and agency adverts is heard throughout, evidence of South Coast’s growing success in the Cork radio market. The Top 40 is followed by the favourite records of the station’s DJs that week. There are no timechecks in the recording, presumably because it would be repeated. The final section below also contains snippets of Nick Richards, Tony Allan and Hugh Browne from what seem to be other editions of the Top 40 show.

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4 and clips of other Top 40 shows

Audio quality is fair to good with some distortion in places. The recording was made from 104 FM and is courtesy of Lillian O’Donoghue.

17th October 20229th October 2022

Steve Marshall on Galway’s WLS

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Steve Marshall was one of the founders of Galway station WLS (1985-1987), along with other ex-offshore DJs Keith York (RIP) and Don Stevens. WLS broadcast on 846 kHz AM and 104 FM, but switched to 102.7 in May 1985 after RTÉ alleged that it was interfering with television reception in Galway. By the summer of 1986, WLS was established as a popular and successful commercial station but it closed in unexplained circumstances in June 1987 after the departure of Don Stevens. Keith York and Steve Marshall went on to form Coast 103, which broadcast until the end of 1988.

This undated recording features Steve Marshall presenting a late night show sometime around October 1986. It was made from 102.7 FM from 2157-2233 and is courtesy of Brendan Mee.