Ken Regis on Cork City Local Radio

Ken Regis on Cork City Local Radio
L-R: CCLR veterans Jill St Clair (Trish Deeney), Ken Regis (O’Sullivan), Rob Richards (Allen) & Eric Hansen (John Creedon) in 2015 (courtesy Ken O’Sullivan).

We’re very grateful to Ken O’Sullivan for his donations of recordings of Cork City Local Radio (CCLR). The first recording was made on 24th April 1983 from 95.5 FM in stereo and features Ken Regis, as he was known on air, with a Sunday afternoon requests show. There’s also a pretty tough competition with a prize of a box of chocolates up for grabs. Some of the recording is airchecked and there’s a bit of wobble on the 40-year old cassette.

The recording below is of Ken Regis on 19th March 1983 from 1555 from 95.5 FM. It begins with adverts for local businesses around Cork and a generic sung jingle. There’s also a radio-related competition and interestingly, the show is being taped for a listener in Galway. Sound quality is fair due to the wobbly cassette.

The final recording features Ken in the early evening of 22nd May 1983 and is again from 95.5 FM. There’s a reference to a petition to support local radio in Cork, a reflection of the raids on Dublin stations a few days previously. Adverts are a mixture of pre-records and live-reads and once again the tape is showing its age.

Top 100 of 1982 on Cork City Local Radio

Top 100 of 1982 on Cork City Local Radio
Unidentified DJ in the CCLR studio in 1983 (courtesy DX Archive).

This recording of Cork City Local Radio (CCLR) was made from 1830-1900 on 27th December 1982 and features the end of a marathon show featuring the Top 100 songs of the year. DJ Brian Downey has come to the of a long shift and signs off before the jingle at the top of the hour.

In September 1982, CCLR added an FM transmitter on 95.6 MHz in line in changes in radio listening. We have no record of the frequency from which this recording was made but it sounds like FM mono. Perhaps the tape recorder was set to mono on that day, or CCLR may not have had a stereo encoder yet.

Thanks to Ian Biggar for the donation.

Early evening requests on Cork City Local Radio

Early evening requests on Cork City Local Radio
Stairs leading to the CCLR studio on French Church Street in 1981 (courtesy DX Archive).

This recording of Cork City Local Radio (CCLR) is of Philip Knight (Johnston) on his early evening show on 24th August 1980 from 1900-1930. The show gives a sense of CCLR’s popularity at this time as there are plenty of requests and the buzz created by the DJ shines through the poor audio quality. There’s even a reference to Radio Luxembourg, which was a big influence on Irish DJs of the time. As the article below outlines, CCLR had plans in 1982 to make its style sound more American and increase its coverage area. However, the arrival of larger pirates such as South Coast Radio and ERI put smaller stations off the air and CCLR closed in late 1983.

Early evening requests on Cork City Local Radio
A 1982 article about CCLR (courtesy Ian Biggar).

This recording is donated by Lillian O’Donoghue.

Sunday oldies show on CCLR

Sunday oldies show on CCLR
The CCLR AM transmitter in 1983 (courtesy DX Archive).

This is a recording of part of the Sunday afternoon oldies show on Cork City Local Radio. The presenter refers to himself only as ‘BG’ and promises that the music ‘will make your valves glow or your batteries run low’. Audio quality is poor but there are a few interesting retro jingles. The recording was made from 1600-1630 on 24th August 1980 and is donated by Lillian O’Donoghue.

Late Night Extra on CCLR

Late Night Extra on CCLR
Fergus Dalton with Lillian McCarthy in his CBC days (photo courtesy of Lillian).

This recording of Cork City Local Radio (CCLR) is of the Light Night Extra programme presented by Fergus Dalton on Monday 21st July 1980 from 2202-2322. There are plenty of station idents and short comedy segments between records and a special request is played for loyal listener Lillian McCarthy (O’Donoghue). Fergus also previews the following day’s programmes on 261 metres.

Audio quality is poor as this recording was made by placing a tape recorder up against an AM radio. Thanks to Lillian O’Donoghue for the donation.