Evening drivetime with DJ Lee on Radio Leinster

Evening drivetime with DJ Lee on Radio Leinster
Radio Leinster sticker (Anoraks Ireland Collection).

Radio Leinster was a multi-format station broadcasting to Dublin and surrounding areas from 1981-1983. The music style was MOR/easy-listening and there were also specialist programmes covering a wide range of genres.

This recording features a familiar voice on the Dublin pirates, DJ Lee, presenting the evening Bumper to Bumper show. The programme includes traffic reports, a listeners’ competition, featured albums, the Ramble Around Dublin slot, TV movies and a city events guide. Adverts are heard for businesses throughout Dublin and news on the hour is read by Gary Miley, who would later work for Sunshine Radio and eventually RTÉ. News at 1900 is edited out but Lee is followed by Conor Brooks with a Top 40 show, presumably one of Radio Leinster’s specialist programmes. Conor would later be heard on alternative/indie station Capitol/Nitesky 96.

Evening drivetime with DJ Lee on Radio Leinster
Original cassette inlay from Anoraks Ireland Collection.

Radio Leinster broadcast on 738 kHz AM (announcing 406 metres), using a professionally-built 1kW transmitter, and on 93 FM. It closed suddenly on 19th May 1983, following the raids on Sunshine and Radio Nova. This recording was made from FM on Tuesday 18th January 1983 between 1730 and 1908 and is from the Anoraks Ireland Collection.

DJ Lee on Echo Community Radio

DJ Lee on Echo Community Radio

Echo Community Radio was one of several small Dublin stations that came and went during the 1980s. It broadcast from Blanchardstown in west Dublin and was first logged by DX Archive in July 1985. The station broadcast on AM only initially and was located in the Centrepoint Shopping Centre. According to Anoraks UK Weekly Report, it closed down by January 1986. There is no known connection to the earlier Echo Radio based in Clontarf in 1982.

This recording of Echo Community Radio features DJ Lee, a familiar voice from the 1980s pirates, presenting an afternoon slot. There’s a listeners’ competition for cinema tickets but tellingly, no adverts are heard over 90 minutes of primetime radio listening. The station claimed to broadcast to the Greater Dublin Area but clearly power was low as there is co-channel intereference, likely from Radio Carousel North on the same frequency of 1071 kHz (announced by Echo as 280 metres).

The tape was made from 1555-1737 on Wednesday 26th June 1985 and is from the Anoraks Ireland Tapes Collection.

Advert: Tamango Nightclub

One of the most advertised nightclubs in Ireland, Tamango’s was at the Sands Hotel Portmarnock. This was also the home of Sunshine Radio.

This advert dates to when Sunshine was new and on 91.6 MHz. The voice on the advert is DJ Lee (but was previously listed incorrectly as Tony Prince.)

Advert: Tamango Nightclub
The original Tamango’s logo at the White Sands Hotel today (photo by John Walsh).