Along with the vast majority of the other pirates, the Donegal station Radio North closed down at the end of 1988 in compliance with new broadcasting legislation. This recording of the final hour of Radio North on New Year’s Eve is presented by Mickey Henry who shares many requests from loyal listeners on both sides of the border, including one who has recorded most of the shows for posterity. Other presenters join Mickey in studio and there is a supportive phone call from neighbouring pirate Donegal Community Radio (DCR).
Cutting from the Donegal Democrat in early 1989 featuring the county’s pirates.
The closedown speech just before midnight is read by station manager Francis Callaghan, who thanks everyone involved over the previous two years. Although the transmitter is about to be switched off, he hints that more is to come when he says that Radio North will be bigger and better than ever in 1989.
The recording was made by Rodney Neill from 98 FM between 2302-0000 on December 31st 1988 and is courtesy of DX Archive. Within days, Radio North would return to the airwaves.
Sunshine 101 sticker (courtesy of the late Pat Herbert).
Bee Bop Gold was a popular oldies show on Dublin pirate station Sunshine 101 towards the end of its eight years on air. It was presented by Nails Mahoney, who went on to have a successful radio career in Ireland, the UK and Canada and now runs a radio consultancy.
By 1988, Sunshine was Dublin’s leading station and was hotly tipped to get one of the city’s two licences to be awarded in 1989 after the closedown of the pirates. That was not to happen and Sunshine’s managing director Robbie Robinson took an unsuccessful case against the Independent Radio and Television Commission.
This recording of Bee Bop Gold was made during Sunshine 101’s final month on air in 1988. It is slick and professional and features the high-level adverts and imaging associated with a successful commercial station. The tape was made on Sunday 4th December 1988 from 101.1 FM between 1344-1430 and is from the Anoraks Ireland Collection.
Wedding promotion poster from 1988 (Anoraks Ireland Collection).
Class 98.5 FM (formerly KLAS), was an easy-listening station broadcasting from Dublin from 1986-1988. Set up by the founder of Radio Carousel, Hugh Hardy (RIP), it was later sold to television aerials salesman John Maye. Based in the up-market Harcourt Street area for the last part of its existence, Class was popular with older listeners not catered for by the chart music played on many pirate stations.
Class 98.5 FM advert from 1988 (courtesy DX Archive).
This recording of Class was made in the station’s final month and begins with Bryan Lambert presenting an evening show sponsored by Clearvision. Music is a mixture of easy-listening and classical and there are news headlines at the top of the hour. News is followed by station owner John May to announce the winner of a wedding package worth £2,000 sponsored by various Dublin businesses. The voice of Hugh Browne (RIP), who had previously broadcast on pirate radio in Cork, is among those heard on adverts and there is also a promo for a special classical music show in aid of the National Children’s Hospital, presented by Nella Allen. Nella had previously presented classical shows on Radio Leinster (1981-1983), which bore certain similarities to Class in its offering to listeners.
The recording is from the Anoraks Ireland Collection and was made from 98.5 FM between 1747-1833 on Monday 5th December 1988.
Q107 was a part-time hobby pirate station broadcasting in Dublin in the 1980s. Information about the station is scant, but it seems that Q107 appeared sporadically between 1984 and 1988. In common with many other hobby stations, it spent a longer period on air towards the end of 1988 as the deadline for the closure of the pirates approached. Based in Ballyfermot in west Dublin, Q107’s owner was Ray Brennan, reportedly a nephew of the legendary pirate pioneer Don Moore (RIP), who provided studio gear for the hobby station. This recording was made in the final few weeks of 1988 and features Ray Brennan himself, using his on-air name Alan Byrnes. Callers to Q107 include Paul Davidson (Tony Donlon, RIP) of Anoraks Ireland, who says he has plans to record the closedown of every one of the 128 pirates still on air at the end of the year.
This recording was made from 107 FM from 2343-0029 on Sunday and Monday 11th and 12th December 1988 and is from the Anoraks Ireland Collection. Alan Byrnes closes down the station for the night and says it will return later that morning at 0700. Thanks to Ian Biggar for additional information.
Chris Cary during the Nova International days (courtesy Sybil Fennell)
In spring 1988, Radio Nova founder Chris Cary (RIP) began yet another innovative radio experiment, this time on satellite from Surrey in England. Radio Nova International was a licensed satellite station on Intelsat VA F11 but remained connected to the Irish pirate radio scene through AM/FM relays on the other side of the Irish Sea. The station began testing at 1450 on 29th April 1988 with Cary being the first voice heard on air. Ex-Energy 103 DJ Tim Kelly presented the first show and another familiar name from Ireland was Liam Quigley, who had broadcast on pirates in Cork and Dublin. Veteran offshore DJ Tony Blackburn, then working with London’s Capital Radio, was to present a European Top 40 show and a soul programme. Radio Nova International was officially launched at 1900 on 4th May by none other than the Minister of State for Broadcasting. Reportedly, Cary had invested £1m in the new service, which was aimed at all Europe.
A special report in the Anoraks UK Weekly Report of 22nd May 1988 explained the novelty of satellite radio to readers: ‘The transmissions are microlinked from the studios in Surrey, England, to the Telecom Tower in London’s West End. From there, they are beamed directly to Docklands, British Telecom’s Teleport, where the signal is uplinked to the satellite Intelsat VA F11, in geo-stationery orbit 26,000 miles above the earth. The satellite re-broadcasts Nova (and the others) back to earth. At this point, satellite dish owners can tune in’. It added that alternative ways to tuning in were ‘being lucky enough to be on the cable system’ or living ‘in the listening area of a radio station taking Nova for all or part of the day and re-broadcasting it locally. It is thought that many Irish stations may invest in a satellite dish and relay Nova, inserting their own adverts in opt-out advert spaces, and leaving Nova’s national adverts in’.
Advert for Radio Nova International in Weekly Report, 14.08.88
Many top names from the radio world were hired by Cary to work on Radio Nova International. News bulletins were syndicated from Independent Radio News and a mailing address of PO Box 1065, London W2 was announced on air. The format was aimed at 15-39 year olds and described by Weekly Report as CHR (contemporary hit radio). The 29th May 1988 edition of Weekly Report had strong praise for Radio Nova International: ‘This station is hypnotic, get a satellite dish at once! The programmes, listened to extensively on Tuesday, were excellent, well produced and fast moving’. At that time, the line-up included Chris Cary himself, Declan Meehan, Tony Blackburn and Liam Quigley and numerous adverts were noted for large firms such as Teledisk, Premier Film Channel, Sunday World, Comp Shop and hi-tech companies. ‘Half the excitement of the station comes from wondering who is going to appear next’, Weekly Report added.
In the edition of 26th June 1988, Weekly Report noted that Coast Hot Hits in Galway was the first Irish station to relay the satellite Nova, followed by ABC Waterford. ILR stations in the UK were also using the Nova Night Network as overnight programming, with 15 such stations predicted to be doing so in the near future. A promo for a £10,000 giveaway was also aired around this time, prompting a comparison with the big competitions of the early 1980s by the original Radio Nova in Dublin.
A change in the Nova line-up was noted in the Weekly Report of 14th August. Tony Blackburn was forced to leave Nova due to contractual obligations at Capital Radio. Pat Courtenay also joined the station having spent several years in Ireland. It was noted that many stations in Ireland were by then relaying the Nova Night Network, including ABC Radio, Coast Hot Hits, Southside 95 (Dún Laoghaire) and Liberty 104. Following the demise of Southside 95 in autumn 1988, the transmitter continued to relay Radio Nova 24 hours a day, thereby returning the familiar and popular Nova sound to the listeners of Dublin for the last few months of the pirate era. The relay continued right up to midnight on New Year’s Eve 1988 when the pirate airwaves fell silent.
This recording of Radio Nova International was made close to the end of its Dublin relay and features station owner and founder Chris Cary on air. There are many references to other stations carrying Nova in other parts of the UK as well as in Ireland and Norway and among the adverts are one for Dublin’s Tivoli Theatre. Familiar voices on adverts include Sybil Fennell and Pat Courtenay and the classic Nova jingles are also used. The tape was made from the Southside 95 relay on 94.9 FM between 0002-0048 on Saturday 17th December 1988 and is from the Anoraks Ireland Collection.
