Bob Gallico Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Irish Pirate Radio Audio Archive

7th April 202324th March 2024

Radio Nova on Good Friday 1985

This is a recording of the popular breakfast show with John Clarke and Bob Gallico on Radio Nova from Good Friday 1985. There is no paper review given the holiday but the programme features the normal friendly banter between the hosts and Bob reads out a fan letter from a group of listeners. John gives a traffic report for the northwest of England but by contrast the streets of Dublin are quiet. Although Nova was still a leader in the Dublin radio market in early 1985, new Irish-owned station Q102 would soon make its presence felt and Chris Cary’s radio empire began to unravel by the autumn of that year. Nova closed suddenly on March 19^th 1986.

The recording was made from 102.7 FM from 0703-0751 on 5^th April 1985 and is from the Anoraks Ireland Tapes Collection, donated to us by Paul Davidson.

24th March 202323rd March 2023

Tony Allan on KISS FM

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Tony Allan (1949-2004) was one of the most iconic broadcasters of the pirate era, whose distinctive voice was heard on offshore and Irish stations from the late 1960s, including Radio Caroline, Sunshine Radio and Radio Nova. This is a recording of Tony presenting a mid-morning show on Radio Nova offshoot KISS FM. The music is an eclectic mix of chart sounds, rock and even country but is linked effortlessly by the flawless presentation. Commercial breaks feature many agency adverts, reflecting the station’s impact on the Dublin market. News is read by another Radio Nova veteran, the late Bob Gallico.

Part 1 above runs from 1002 and Part 2 below from 1053.

Part 2 from 1053 – news is airchecked.

The recording was made from 102.7 FM on Thursday 10^th October 1982 and is from the Anoraks Ireland Tapes Collection, donated to us by Paul Davidson.

20th May 202120th May 2021

Pirate.ie in three minutes

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This three-minute clip gives a sense of the variety of content in the Pirate.ie archive. It covers stations big and small, in Dublin and elsewhere, playing mainstream pop or featuring specialist programming. The first segment features Ireland’s best-known pirate Radio Nova and its ‘Dublin Today’ programme on 30^th August 1983, the day of the giveaway.

The second segment is from the Irish Christian Broadcasting Service from 3^rd September 1983, just four days before a divisive referendum about inserting a ban on abortion into the Irish constitution. The presenter announces an interview with a US campaigner.

The third segment features a promo for community radio broadcast in 1987 on Bray Local Broadcasting south of Dublin. Among the voices is the then Minister for Communications, the late Jim Mitchell, whose party did not favour community radio. BLB was a leading member of the National Association of Community Broadcasters.

The next segment is a jingle for Boyneside Radio (1978-1988) based in Co. Louth which became a regional station covering an area stretching from Belfast to Dublin. The station had transmitters along the border and an opt-out service aimed at Northern Ireland.

The next segment features one of Ireland’s best-known pirate broadcasters, the late John ‘the Man’ Frawley opening Raidió Luimní on 20^th April 1983. The station broadcast from Limerick for ten years from 1978-1988 and the popular Frawley had listeners over a wide area. He begins by greeting listeners in Irish.

Finally we hear the late Bob Gallico reading the news on New Year’s Day 1988 on Energy 103, a popular professional station that emerged from the ashes of Radio Nova in 1986.

1st January 202131st December 2023

Bob Gallico reading news on Energy 103

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This is a recording of veteran newscaster the late great Bob Gallico reading the lunchtime news on New Year’s Day 1988 on Dublin super-pirate Energy 103. Bob’s voice was one of the most familiar and iconic of the 1980s Dublin pirates.

Energy 103 emerged from the ashes of Radio Nova on 29^th April 1986 and broadcast until 11^th March 1988, when it closed suddenly. Within hours its frequencies were taken over by Q102. Bob Gallico died in 2013 at the age of 83 in Massachusetts. You can read tributes here.

14th September 20207th August 2021

Full recording: Radio West (Mullingar)

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Radio West was one of the large regional stations of the pirate era and even renamed itself ‘West National Radio 3’ in 1988 as it claimed to be broadcasting nationwide. Its 10kW transmitter on 765 kHz (later 702) gave it good coverage over a wide area and an infill AM on 711 kW was added for Galway in 1988. Radio West also had a chain of low-powered FM relays from Dublin to Galway but it was stretching the imagination to claim national coverage.

This recording is of the end of the Mike Young breakfast show from 0918-1003 on 2^nd February 1984, recorded from 765 kHz in Dublin. There is some electrical interference with audio dropout from time to time and there seems to be some drift off channel by the end of the recording. Ads are heard from across the midland counties, some of which feature the voice of station owner Shaun Coyne. Idents are voiced by Tony Allan and interestingly the 10.00 news is a relay of Bob Gallico on Radio Nova in Dublin. We don’t know if there was ever a formal agreement with Nova to rebroadcast its news or if this is an example of piracy by one pirate from another – smaller stations were known to relay news from bigger stations and Radio Dublin infamously rebroadcast bulletins from RTÉ for a time.

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