When it closed just before Christmas in 1988, Raidió Luimní brought ten unique and memorable years of broadcasting to a close. While many Limerick stations came and went, Raidió Luimní was a constant presence in the city throughout the pirate era and had a huge following due largely to the unconventional style of its owner, John ‘the Man’ Frawley. It also had listeners well beyond Limerick city, thanks to an efficient Irish-made transmitter on 1125 kHz.
The station closed down a week earlier than other the pirates at the end of 1988, leaving the air at 0130 on Christmas Eve. This recording is of the final half-hour of the station with Alf de Lacy who says a long goodbye to Raidió Luimní listeners and staff and even thanks local Gardaí for their hard work over Christmas! A few bars of Denis Allen’s song ‘Limerick, You’re a Lady’ are played and then the national anthem brings Raidió Luimní to the end of its colourful life.
The recording was made from 103 FM from 0100-0130 on 24th December 1988. We thank John Breslin for the donation. You can listen here to John the Man’s final show.
A comprehensive overview of the 1988 closedowns is available on the Radiowaves site.
Raidió Luimní was one of the longest-serving pirates in the country, broadcasting from Limerick City from 1978 to 1988. It had a large following of loyal listeners in counties Limerick, Tipperary and Clare due to the eccentric broadcasting style of its owner, the late John ‘the Man’ Frawley. Raidió Luimní was a community station with a difference featuring all sorts of local characters and unusual programming. It was also one of the first stations to feature death notices, a tradition that continues on local radio today.
This is part of John the Man’s final show on 23rd December 1988, the station’s last day of broadcasting. There are letters and requests from loyal listeners who are sad to see Raidió Luimní close and an emotional farewell from one of the more memorable pirate broadcasters of the 1980s.
The recording made from 1033-1118 from 103 FM and is kindly donated by John Breslin.
This is another selection of undated excerpts from the DXers’ programme on Galway pirate KFM in the final months of 1988. Presenter Shane Keating chats to contributor John Breslin from north Co. Clare about shortwave DXing. John lists DX clubs and shortwave stations he has heard recently including Radio Budapest, Transworld Radio, Voice of Ethiopia and Radio Finland. Shane provides addresses of European stations so that listeners can request QSLs.
Shane Keating also presented a Saturday morning children’s programme on KFM and there are excerpts of this including phone calls from young listeners. The recording ends with Shane signing off for the last time on 31st December 1988, the day that KFM closed and the Irish airwaves fell largely silent.
We thank John Breslin for his donation of this recording, which was made from 95.99 FM in north Clare. Reception is variable as it outside the core KFM coverage area.
Brian Greene on air and John Walsh in the ‘newsroom’, 31st December 1988.
Centre Radio closed down at exactly midnight on 31st December 1988 in compliance with new legislation which was supposed to silence pirate radio and herald the legalisation of the sector. From what we can establish, Centre was one of just five stations in Dublin still broadcasting that evening, the others being Capitol Radio, Phoenix Radio (Blanchardstown), Dreamtime Radio (a hobby station in Glasnevin) and of course Radio Dublin which defied the new law.
Brian Greene prepares to close down Centre Radio at midnight.
This is the final 42 minutes of Centre Radio from 2322 to 0000 presented by Brian Greene. The final song was ‘I want to be free’ by Toyah Wilcox, which was the station’s anthem. Listen right to the end when after the final station ident, the transmitter is switched off and 94.2 FM falls silent.
L-R: Eamonn Roe, Tom Berry and John Walsh after Centre closed down.
It was a seriously downbeat New Year’s party at the Mid-Sutton Community Centre in the early hours of New Year’s Day 1989 as the new radio era dawned with only Radio Dublin to disrupt the government’s plans.
Brian and John after the midnight closedown.
Brian’s reflections
Centre Radio in 1988 was the end of a run of four years of my youth where I spent every free hour involved in radio. Not just the DJing but the building, planning and keeping stations on air in oases of time blocks where I could put stations on for holidays or breaks or even weekends. Then came Centre Radio 88 and it was a project without end: full-time, on air daily and gaining real community kudos as we put down roots in Bayside.
As an example of the community roots we developed, the following is a true story. We were a 40-watt station. The transmitter on FM was unusual for the era in that it was a valve transmitter. The voltages in a valve transmitter are high tension using transformers. Transformers degrade over time and melt down, or at least the one we had was dying while frying. We badly needed a new transformer and we took to the airwaves with a promo in our programming asking the community to donate a 600-volt transformer to the station. We had the news item added to the Bayside Parish Newsletter (the notice must have looked odd among the usual Novena of Grace and Pioneer Total Abstinence Association dates for meetings notices). Our prayers were answered as a parishioner who read our cry for help, delivered three transformers to our studio and we were grateful for the community spirit in action. It was a good deed from a good Samaritan (I don’t think I can milk any more puns from this story!)
So it was a project without end until Ray Burke TD of Fianna Fáil announced that all pirates had to shut down by December 31st 1988. We unlike most stations took this to mean on the 31st not the 30th (before the 31st). The period from 1978-1988 for pirate radio or free radio, as we called it back then, saw massive development in the sector (see our paper on the topic here). But following Burke’s introduction of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1988, free radio changed forever and its growth was badly disrupted.
Community radio was neglected in the shake out of new commercial radio. The new stations were tame imitations of the former pirates. It would be seven years before community radio had a chance to start. The Centre Radio crew didn’t give up and applied for a licence as Bay Radio Group. Near FM won that licence overlapping our area in a small way. Centre became Radio Caroline Dublin from 1989-2001 (one of the longest running continuous pirates on air in Ireland). The core gang didn’t break up, didn’t leave radio and many are still involved to this day. We just never got to have Bayside Community Radio and it wouldn’t work now. But something different would work.
Centre was a youth radio service but with enough adults and young adults around and some serious radio heads there was never a bedroom radio vibe to the station. The dedication of the crew at the time was massive. We went out with a bang. And stayed on air to the end. The tapes (archived here) remind me of a time when radio was the social media and through study and archive creation both John and I now know that ‘radio was the first social media’ is not a glib throwaway comment but in fact the truth. TV was and still is not as accessible as radio and radio for me was the medium of choice that has the power – and is yet to have its finest hour. We shall overcome. Only The Strong Survive. Catch Us If You Can. Long live free radio.
A quiet New Year dawns at Mid-Sutton Community Centre.
John’s reflections
It was an emotional time then and the recording still stirs plenty of feelings as I listen back decades later. On New Year’s Eve 1988 I had gone full circle: two-and-a-half years previously I had first cut my broadcasting teeth on the predecessor to Centre Radio, Big Beat Radio, set up by Brian and others in June 1986. I was also involved with Centre from its earliest days and went on to work at KLAS, an easy listening station playing music for my grandparents but luckily located in the same housing estate as I grew up. It was to Centre that I returned at the end of the pirate era, as we worked day and night to keep the station on air throughout Christmas 1988 and right up to the final evening. That marked my final pirate broadcast but the free radio spirit never left me and it is a pleasure to keep it alive through this archive.
We were just kids having fun and nobody lost their job or fell on hard times as a result, but looking back now, there’s no doubt that radio got me through my teenage years, helped me work out who I was and kept me out of trouble – how ironic, given that what we were doing was illegal! What replaced the pirates was but a pale imitation of the golden era of 1978-1988 and the government was particularly neglectful of the community sector of which Centre Radio formed a part. But Centre and other stations gave me a great start in radio and on the back of my experience, radio and television journalism became my trade and I earned my crust from it throughout the 1990s. I’m delighted to be still involved through my local community station Flirt FM in Galway, but will never forgot the excitement of those heady teenage pirate years in 1980s Dublin.
The final record played on Midwest is handed by Chris Carroll to Denise Moran (photo by Michael Connaughton).
Midwest Radio was one of the west’s most popular radio stations, coming on air initially for just a few months at the end of 1978 and returning full-time from November 1985. Set up by dancehall promoter Paul Claffey and local DJ Chris Carroll, it was based at the Midas Nightclub in Ballyhaunis and played a popular diet of Irish and country music.
Paul Claffey with Midwest staff and friends at the farewell concert (photo by Michael Connaughton).
The station agreed to close on 30th December 1988 in case of any breach of the midnight deadline on New Year’s Eve. According to a history of the station, Magic and Madness: The Midwest Radio Phenomenon, the station’s single phone line went into meltdown when Paul Claffey announced the closure date a few weeks before Christmas. In a sign of its huge popularity across Mayo, local TD Jim Higgins was among those who led a campaign to allow Midwest to continue beyond the New Year’s Eve deadline.
The packed Midas Nightclub for the farewell concert on 30th December 1988 (photo by Michael Connaughton).
A final farewell concert at the Midas was arranged for the night of Friday, 30th December. From 10am when it opened its doors, crowds of fans descended on the nightclub from across Mayo and such was the traffic chaos that Gardaí had to ask Midwest to stop advertising the event. The final programme was presented by former Garda John Duggan who had begun his pirate career when still a serving member of the force.
Directors of Midwest Radio at the IRTC hearing in Galway for the Mayo licence, 3rd March 1989 (photo by Michael Connaughton).
Over a thousand people packed into the Midas for Midwest’s final concert which included country singers such as TR Dallas, Declan Nerney and Kevin Prendergast. Paul Claffey paid tribute to Midwest presenters and behind the scenes staff, inviting them all onto the stage to rapturous applause. Some of the musicians credited Midwest with their success, mentioning how it and other pirates such as Breffni Radio in Co. Cavan had showcased country music when it was ignored by RTÉ. There were also confident predictions that Midwest would be back and although most of the pirates lost out in the new regime, Midwest returned as a licensed station on Monday, 24th July 1989. The station continues to be highly successful to this day.
This recording is of the final hour of Midwest live from the Midas, made from 98.6 FM from 0056-0158 on 31st December 1988. We thank John Breslin for the donation and James Laffey for the photos.
