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Radio West Anoraks Show from 1986

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Radio West Anoraks Show from 1986
Radio West compliments slip from c. 1986 (courtesy DX Archive).

Radio West broadcast from Mullingar from 1982 until the end of 1988 and achieved wide coverage after it began using the former Radio Nova 10kW transmitter on 765 kHz and later 702 kHz. It was popular with radio watchers because of the lively and often unpredictable Sunday morning Anoraks Show presented by station owner Shaun Coyne and others. A diet of radio gossip, colourful rumours and regular updates from anoraks throughout the country made the show essential listening each week.

This edition of the Anoraks Show was recorded in Dublin from 765 kHz from 1100-1230 on 8th June 1986 and features Philip Hilton with Shaun Coyne. There’s a promise of link-ups with ABC in Waterford and WKLR in Cork but these don’t materialise and the presenters joke that these stations are blacklisted! The Anoraks Show is followed at midday by the first half hour of the traditional music programme Céilí Lár Tíre.

This recording is from the Skywave Tapes Collection. Skywave Radio International broadcast a shortwave station in the 1980s from Baldoyle in northeast Dublin.

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Liberty 104 jingles

Thanks to Kieran Murray who has edited jingles from Liberties Local Community Radio (LLCR) on Pirate.ie along with images of the station into a video on his YouTube channel. LLCR broadcast from the Liberties area of Dublin from April 1986 until the end of the 1988 and went through several incarnations and name changes. It was known variously as Liberty Radio, Liberty 104 and Gold 104. This jingle sweep contains many well-known voices such as Tony Allan and Gerry Moore.

Kieran worked at Liberty in 1987 and you can hear his memories here. For more recordings of this station in our archive, click here.

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Late night Waterford Local Radio

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Late night Waterford Local Radio
WLR logo (courtesy of DX Archive).

Waterford Local Radio (WLR) was one of Ireland’s longest-running pirates, broadcasting from 1978 until the closedowns at the end of 1988. It was also one of the few to be granted a county licence under the new regime in 1989, and continues to broadcast to this day, using the same name.

In its pirate days, WLR broadcast on 1197 kHz AM (announced as 252 metres) and 88.8 FM. The origins of the station went back to 1972 when Rick Whelan and radio technician Egidio Giani managed to broadcast over a range of only a few hundred metres within Waterford City. The station began full-time broadcasting on 23rd June 1978 from Rick Whelan’s garage in Butlerstown to the west of the city and soon boosted its signal to cover a 20-mile radius. In September 1979, WLR moved into the city and linked its signal by FM to the AM site in Butlerstown. Rick’s brother Des became manager in 1978 and closed down WLR ten years later on 31st December 1988. The licensed WLR returned to the Waterford airwaves on 8th September 1989 and Des Whelan is still the managing director.

This recording was made from 88.8 FM on 24th March 1986 and is of part of a late night show presented by John O’Shea. It is from the Skywave Tapes Collection. Skywave Radio International was a shortwave station broadcasting from Baldoyle in northeast Dublin. Listen here to an interview with Eoin Ronayne about his memories of the pirate WLR.

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Dublin’s easy listening station KLAS 98

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Dublin's easy listening station KLAS 98
KLAS logo from 1987 (courtesy of Eddie Bohan).

KLAS was Dublin’s easy listening station, broadcasting on 98.5 FM from November 1986 until December 31st 1988. It was set up by Hugh Hardy who owned the Radio Carousel network and broadcast from a time from a garage behind his home in Sutton in Dublin. The station was renamed as Class 98 and managed by John May in its final months on air from studios in Harcourt Street in the city centre. It applied unsuccessfully in 1989 for one of the two Dublin city licences.

One of the founders of Pirate.ie, John Walsh, was involved in KLAS while still at school. Here is an aircheck of his programme between 1320-1400 on 21st December 1986 which includes agency ads and an ad for the Sunday World voiced by John himself.

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Tony Christie on Radio Dublin

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Tony Christie on Radio Dublin
Radio Dublin car sticker from the mid-1980s (courtesy of DX Archive).

Tony Christie was a familiar voice on many pirates in the 1980s including Liberty 104, Radio Dublin and KISS FM in Co. Offaly to where he moved in 1987. Here he is on Radio Dublin from 105 FM on Sunday 24th August 1986 from 1512-1600 with a show sponsored by the No Name Fashion Depot in Walkinstown. Along with regular live promos for No Name, the voices of Robbie Robinson and Tony Allan can be heard on ads. Tony Christie is now a broadcaster on Midlands 103.

This recording is from the Skywave Tapes Collection. Skywave Radio International was a shortwave station broadcasting from Baldoyle in northeast Dublin.