We’re delighted to bring you an interview with Gerard Roe, one of the most respected voices in Irish pirate radio circles from the 1980s to the 2000s. Gerard presented weekly Free Radio Campaign (FRC) shows on various pirate stations in Dublin, bringing the latest free radio news and industry gossip to fans of the medium in Ireland and further afield. Gerard’s first FRC aired on Radio Dublin Channel 2 in 1982, a specialist offshoot of the original Radio Dublin. A recording was carried on shortwave station Westside Radio International on Sunday mornings, bringing the FRC to a wider European audience.
Radio Dublin Channel 2 studio (courtesy Gerard Roe).
Poor technical standards and unreliable coverage prompted Gerard to move to new station Radio Annabel when it was established in autumn 1983, where he remained until its closure in 1985.
Part of 1985 letter from Gerard Roe of Radio Annabel to Brian Greene.
FRC-style programmes on 1990s pirates run by Simon Maher also benefited from Gerard’s input and expertise. He contributed to the Anorak Hour on Coast FM (1991-1996), Spectrum FM (1996-1997) and Phantom FM (1997-2003). Gerard became CEO of Phantom when it was licensed as a full-time alternative rock station in 2006.
Gerard (second from right) at the launch of Phantom FM’s licence application in 2004.
In this interview with Brian Greene, Gerard reflects on his long career in radio from the pirate years of the 1980s and 1990s to the licensing and eventual demise of Phantom FM.
Radio Caroline Dublin flyer from 1992 (from Brian’s collection).
Radio Caroline Dublin (1989-2000) was one of the longest running stations of the second wave of the pirates following legalisation. It was set up by Brian Greene (Bobby Gibbson on air) and Tom Berry (RIP) who had previously run Centre Radio from Bayside in 1987-1988. Radio Caroline Dublin began broadcasting on bank holiday Mondays in 1989 and went full-time in January 1992. The station settled on 102.5 FM and increased its signal overtime but ran into difficulties with the authorities when Lite FM (later Q102) was licensed for 102.2 in 2000. Radio Caroline Dublin changed its name to WXTC but closed soon afterwards.
Radio Caroline Dublin was typical of pirate stations of the era. The Broadcasting and Wireless Telegraphy Act 1988 forced pirate from the high street and hotels into garden sheds for the majority of the 1990s. Radio Caroline Dublin never ran adverts and did limited fundraisers. Its core funding was through vigorous adherence to DJ subscriptions. Weekly and monthly subs were collected with two tiers for waged and unwaged. The subs from 25+ volunteers funded the very best of club DJing equipment in studio and a Dublin Mountains TX site. The subs were directly linked to democratic involvement in purchasing decisions. Ownership structure was more akin to 1970s AM pirates but there was a not-for-profit ethos from the start.
Full time hours were 5pm-12am Monday-Friday and 9am-1am at weekends. The station was involved in an unsuccessful licence bid for a community radio licence in 1996, and was a constituent group in the formation of Dublin-wide community of interest station Anna Livia FM, but then never got involved with that station as they were busy building Radio Caroline Dublin.
This interview with Brian Greene was conducted by Pete Reid (Simon Maher) and Gerard Roe in July 1998 in the Radio Caroline Dublin studio. It was featured in Anorak Hour #151 on 2nd August 1998 on Phantom FM and repeated during Anorak Hour #249 on 17th September 2000. This donation is with thanks to Gerard Roe.
John Dolan (real name Tadhg Dolan) worked in the first Cork pirates CBC and CCLR in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He also did some shows on Sunshine Radio in Dublin as well as stints with RTÉ’s Cork Local Radio and licensed station Radio South (later Cork’s 96 FM).
This airchecked recording is of John’s first show on Sunshine Radio between 1955-2100 sometime in May 1981. Audio is fair as the recording was made by placing a cassette recorder up against a radio. John is introduced by the previous DJ, Tony Dixon (RIP) and the voice of Sunshine boss Robbie Robinson (RIP) is heard on some of the adverts. Broadcasting ends at 2100 with the iconic Desiderata song, which closed the station down each night.
Peter Walsh on Big Beat Radio in 1986 (photo Brian Greene).
Big Beat Radio is especially important to us as it involved both co-founders of Pirate.ie, Brian Greene and John Walsh. The station began broadcasting on June 17th 1986 in a room belonging to the community centre on the seafront in the suburb of Baldoyle in northeast Dublin. There were six founders, all of whom were 16: Brian Greene (Bobby Gibbson* on air), Dónal Greene, Michael Redmond, Peter Walsh, Brian Hegarty and Mark Tynan. John Walsh was a year younger and joined as a newsreader and occasional DJ.
Big Beat was on air for seven weeks of the summer school holidays. The original plan was to go on AM with the copper wires running along the seafront behind the studio but the station ended up on FM. Around the same time, the Carroll’s Irish Open Golf tournament was held across the estuary in Portmarnock about 400 metres from the studio. RTÉ set up a dedicated radio station for the tournament on 96.6 FM, forcing Big Beat to move down to 96.2 at the last minute.
Brian Greene (top) and Mark McGuinness set up the studio (from Brian’s collection).
Power was about 15 watts but the mast wasn’t more than 20 feet off the ground and therefore the signal didn’t travel far. Audio quality was poor with levels very uneven. The single microphone was wrapped in a cloth to prevent popping and taped to a wooden banister which protruded from a scratchy mixer dating from the 1960s. Two turntables, a cassette deck and headphones completed the studio set-up.
A radio theme prevails at the site in 2022. The studio was through the door (photo John Walsh).
The studio heated up easily and the door to the green outside was usually left open, with a result that passing buses were often heard during shows. The room was invariably crammed with friends of the DJ so keeping people quiet during links was a challenge. News was presented from 11am until 6pm each day and was lifted from RTÉ, BBC and other pirates. The newsroom was in a stifling disused toilet with no window.
There was no phone at Big Beat, so the telephone box across the road was used for requests. The postal address was 3A Brookstone Road, Baldoyle where co-founder Peter Walsh lived. Sunshine Radio engineer Peter Gibney (RIP) visited one evening because of interference caused to the transmitter in Portmarnock a few kilometres to the north. Big Beat also ran discos for visiting Spanish students at the community centre next door.
2016 reunion at the phone box. L-R: Dónal Greene, Brian Greene, Peter Walsh, Mark Tynan, Michael Redmond, Brian Hegarty (photo John Walsh).
Big Beat closed suddenly at 6pm on Friday August 8th with Don’t You Forget About Me by Simple Minds. This recording is of the final hour from that day. Two of the Big Beat founders, Brian Greene and Peter Walsh, went on to set up Centre Radio, another part-time station that operated from Baldoyle and neighbouring Bayside from Christmas 1986 to the end of 1988. For more memories of Big Beat, see here.
* No, it’s not a typo: the extra ‘b’ in Gibbson was deliberate because the name was fake.
Radio na nGael flyer from 1984 (courtesy DX Archive).
Radio na nGael was a specialist station broadcasting mostly ballads and traditional Irish music from a village near Swords in north Co. Dublin between 1984 and 1986. It broadcast on 1350 kHz AM and on low power on 92 MHz FM, presumably to link to the AM transmitter. The station was also heard on 6340 kHz shortwave but the frequency suffered from interference. Radio na nGael broadcast some problems in Irish but was closed down after RTÉ sought an injunction due to the similarity of the name with that of the national Irish language station Raidió na Gaeltachta.
This recording was made from the AM frequency and dates from the end of January 1985. The cassette label refers to 30th January but the 31st is announced on air. Beginning at 1335, we first hear Mairéad with housewives’ requests and she is followed at 1400 by Danny Tobin. Community news for Fingal is also broadcast.
The signal sounds over-modulated, particularly near the end but we do not know if this was due to a transmission issue at the time or is related to the age of the cassette. The recording is from the Skywave Tapes Collection. Skywave Radio International was a 1980s shortwave station broadcasting from Baldoyle in northeast Dublin.
