Fergal Owens (left) and Jimmy Williams in a wig in the CBC studios (courtesy Jonathan Ryan).
This recording is of part of the Night Shift programme on CBC (Clonmel Broadcasting Corporation), toward the end of the popular Tipperary station’s seven years on air. DJ Fergal Owens is in flying form despite the late hour and has plenty of chat and music. The day’s broadcasting ends with the national anthem at midnight, which is played at the wrong speed for the first few bars.
Original cassette label from the Anoraks Ireland Collection.
The tape was made on 1st and 2nd November 1988 from 102.7 FM in mono. CBC also broadcast on 828 kHz AM. It closed down at midnight on New Year’s Eve 1988. This recording is from the Anoraks Ireland Tapes Collection, donated to us by Paul Davidson.
Early Radio Star sticker – an incorrect frequency in the original has been deleted (Anoraks Ireland Collection).
Although Radio Star Country has long been associated with medium wave only – and remains one of the few stations in Ireland to rely on this band today – the station used both FM link transmitters and higher powered FM rigs in the past. In a letter to Ian Biggar on 15th July 1991, Sean Brady – who would soon become a presenter on the station – wrote that he believed that Radio Star Country was relaying its 981 AM service on 103.7 MHz FM. A friend of his in Craigavon, Co. Armagh could receive the transmission but Sean could not hear it in Oldcastle, Co. Meath, so he presumed that the signal was being directed northwards. On 22nd July 1992, Sean wrote to Ian Biggar to say that Radio Star Country was broadcasting from a caravan at Aughagaw, Smithboro, which is situated some ten miles from Monaghan. The link transmitter was on 106.55 MHz with the AM transmitter located about seven miles away. Sean was unsure where exactly the AM transmitter was situated, but thought it was somewhere near the border with Fermanagh.
According to Rodney Neill in a contribution to issue 2 of Playback magazine, Radio Star Country in 1994 turned on a new FM transmitter aimed at Fermanagh and Armagh. It was first noted on 17th March and was said to be putting out quite a strong signal across the border. This was the first time that Radio Star Country broadcast a high power signal into Northern Ireland since its 103.7 transmitter was removed by a Department of Communications raiding party in the spring of 1991. Between March 1994 and March 1996, Radio Star Country’s studio link was logged by Playback on 106.6 FM and from April 1996 to November 1999, on 105.4. The power on occasion was reported to be 150 watts. In an email to Ian Biggar on 5th March 2001, Sean Brady reported that Radio Star Country was now broadcasting from a site close to its AM transmitter and used links on 101.2 MHz and 103.7 MHz. They had been heard on air announcing these two frequencies but Sean presumed it must have been very low power as he could not hear the station on FM in Oldcastle, Co. Meath.
On 13th January 2002, Sean Brady told Ian Biggar that Radio Star Country was now using the world’s first self-contained 100 percent solid state transmitter which produced a 1 kilowatt carrier at any designated frequency in the range 520-1610 kHz, with full redundancy built into a single unit. Some designs have a degree of redundancy built into the power amplifier stage, but the Eddystone B6038E has 100 percent redundancy from the supply to the RF output. Sean wrote that the transmitter was an ex-IBA unit. It was used on 828 kHz medium wave as the main transmitter for Townland Radio (later Gold Beat) in Cookstown, County Tyrone. It apparently took months of long nights and hard work to get the transmitter up and running again and then ages to get it working on 981 kHz. In relation to the Radio Star Country FM transmitters, Sean added that they were both ex-IBA Norsk Marconi transmitters designed by the BBC and licensed to Marconi. 101.2 MHz was the link frequency to the main transmitter on 103.7 MHz. However, after the raids and visits, it was thought best to abandon the transmissions on FM and concentrate on medium wave.
Today’s recording is from 1997 and features DJ Gerry Martin with an afternoon show. Eight years after the pirates were supposedly silenced for good, the station is still carrying a large number of adverts, including a promotion for the Radio Star Country Club in Armagh, a country sports fair in Armagh and linedancing classes in a nightclub in Belfast. There are giveaways of concert tickets and an event sponsored by Radio Star Country in Tyrone. The tape was made on 10th May 1997 from 981 kHz in Scotland. Part 1 above runs from 1357 and Part 2 below from 1445.
Part 2 from 1445.
Thanks to Ian Biggar for the donation and for assistance with the text.
An Stoirm Chiúin, adapted from Q102 advert in 1985
In February 2021, the director and writer of an Irish language film to be known as Fanacht contacted Pirate.ie about using clips from our archive as ‘radio filler’. Colm Bairéad told us that the film was based on Claire Keegan’s novel Foster and set in Louth and Waterford over the summer of 1981. In order to give a flavour of local radio from that era, he said that they would like to use audio of DJs and adverts on Radio Carousel and ABC Radio from the early 1980s. We were more than happy to support this and wrote back to Colm in Irish and English with information about using or adapting the clips.
Two years later and what is now known as An Cailín Ciúin (The Quiet Girl) has become a huge hit in Ireland and across the world and is the most successful Irish language film ever. It received numerous awards and was nominated for the 95th Academy Awards in the ‘International Feature Film’ category of the Oscars. An Cailín Ciúin is supported by TG4’s Cine4 scheme, an exciting initiative that has boosted several new films in Irish in recent years. Screen Ireland and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland also provided assistance. Pirate.is is proud to have contributed to the film’s success in a small way and we are delighted that Irish pirate radio audio from our archive has been heard at film festivals and cinemas throughout the world as an authentic representation of the cultural and audio history of Ireland in the 1980s.
To mark the occasion, we have adapted a 1985 poster by the then new Dublin pirate station Q102, which used the tagline ‘the Quiet Storm’ in its early months on air. Q102 was the newest ‘super-pirate’ in the city, a large and professional operation that went on to enjoy commercial success until it closed down at the end of 1988 in line with new broadcasting legislation. An Cailín Ciúin is also ‘an stoirm chiúin’ – the quiet storm – that has taken the cinema world by storm and made (radio) waves in Ireland and abroad.
Déanaimid comhghairdeas ó chroí le Colm Bairéad, an léiritheoir Cleona Ní Chrualaoich agus aisteoirí agus criú uile an tsárscannáin An Cailín Ciúin. Tá ‘stoirm chiúin’ spreagtha agaibh i saol na scannánaíochta agus na Gaeilge in Éirinn agus ar fud na cruinne agus táimid fíorbhródúil asaibh.
Promo for the news service from 1985 (courtesy Andy Carter).
Henry Owens (real name Henry Condon) was heard on various pirate stations in the 1980s, including Q102, Radio Nova and South Coast Radio in Cork, where he was known as Alan Reid. In this recording from 1986, he presents an afternoon show on Dublin super-pirate Q102. Along with plenty of agency adverts, there’s also a competition to win a trip across the skies of Dublin in the Eye in the Sky helicopter, from which Q102 delivered its traffic reports each morning. News is read by Anne Cassin at two minutes to the hour, an innovation allowing the station to claim that it was first to bring the news to Dublin listeners.
Original label from Anoraks Ireland Collection
Henry went on to enjoy a long career on licensed radio in Ireland and UK up to his untimely death in 2013. Anne Cassin is now a presenter of Nationwide on RTÉ. This tape was recorded on Tuesday 11th March 1986 from 102.1 FM. Part 1 above runs from 1519 and Part 2 below from 1618.
Part 2.
This recording is from the Anoraks Ireland Tapes Collection, donated to us by Paul Davidson.
Radio Valleri was a pioneering pirate station broadcasting from Dublin in the 1970s and 1980s. One of the early hobby operations in the city, it was set up in 1972 by Derek Jones and Mike Anderson and broadcast initially on medium wave from a garden shed in Drumcondra. In 1973, Radio Valleri switched to shortwave and was heard sporadically, often on Sunday mornings, on various frequencies in the 49-metre band over the following years. In the 1980s, the station became one of many to broadcast regularly on shortwave on Sunday mornings, by which time it had settled on 6400 kHz.
This tape is of one of Radio Valleri’s founders, Mike Anderson, with a Sunday show from 1200-1300 in April 1986 (the precise date is unknown). Mike announces broadcasting hours of 0900-1300 and gives a postal address in Baldoyle in northeast Dublin. That broadcast is to be followed by a QSO with another well-known Dublin shortwave pirate, Westside Radio, and Weekend Music Radio in Scotland.
The recording is from the Leon Tipler Tapes Collection, donated to us by Steve England.
