Thanks to Kieran Murray who has edited jingles from Liberties Local Community Radio (LLCR) on Pirate.ie along with images of the station into a video on his YouTube channel. LLCR broadcast from the Liberties area of Dublin from April 1986 until the end of the 1988 and went through several incarnations and name changes. It was known variously as Liberty Radio, Liberty 104 and Gold 104. This jingle sweep contains many well-known voices such as Tony Allan and Gerry Moore.
Kieran worked at Liberty in 1987 and you can hear his memories here. For more recordings of this station in our archive, click here.
Ian Dempsey at the Crofton Airport Hotel (photo courtesy of Dave Reddy).
Radio 257 was the new name for Alternative Radio Dublin (ARD), a pioneering station of the late 1970s that itself had broken away from Radio Dublin. Radio 257 was launched on 4th January 1980 and based at the Crofton Hotel near Dublin Airport, but reverted to the former ARD name at a later stage. Household names of the future were among the early ARD/Radio 257 crew, including John Clarke, Mike Moran, Tony Allan (RIP), Paul Vincent and Ian Dempsey. The station closed in 1982, a casualty of super-pirates Radio Nova and Sunshine Radio, which had come to dominate the Dublin radio market.
Tony Allan (RIP) in ARD before the relaunch as Radio 257 (photo courtesy of DX Archive).
This recording is of edition #47 of the Free Radio Campaign show on Radio Rainbow International, presented by Kieran Murray on 5th April 1987. It begins with a 5-minute jingle sweep, followed by a recording of the launch of Radio 257 at 12 noon on 4th January 1980. Dave C is in the chair and the launch includes an interview with new breakfast DJ Ian Dempsey and the iconic Tony Allan 257 jingles. The show ends with a weekly round-up of free radio news from Ireland and abroad.
Radio 257 sticker (courtesy of DX Archive).
Radio Rainbow International was a hobby station set up by Boyneside Radio engineer Eddie Caffrey from his home in Co. Louth. It broadcast every Sunday on shortwave, AM and FM for three years from 1985 to the end of 1988. As well as the weekly FRC show, Radio Rainbow also leased airtime to British pirate stations at risk of being raided. We thank Eddie Caffrey for sharing this recording.
Simon Maher at Phantom FM in Wexford Street during a temporary licence period in spring 2004.
In episode #5 of the Pirate.ie podcast, it’s a great pleasure to bring you an interview with Simon Maher, a leading light in the 1990s pirate scene and in subsequent licensed stations. Despite new broadcasting laws that were supposed to silence the pirates, Simon and many others cut their teeth in the lively and diverse world of free radio in Dublin throughout the decade.
In this interview with Brian Greene and John Walsh, Simon looks back over twenty years of radio ranging from garden sheds to multi-million euro professional operations and back to alternative online radio. He describes the humble origins of Coast FM (1991-1996) in bedrooms and garden sheds and the growth of his indie/alternative pirates Spectrum FM (1996-1997) and Phantom FM (1997-2003). After applying three times, Phantom eventually got a full-time alternative rock licence and broadcast to Dublin from 2006-2014 until financial problems forced a corporate takeover and rebranding. Simon discusses the success and failure of the licensed Phantom and tells us why he thinks specialist radio needs to return to its roots. He currently runs 8Radio.com, an alternative online station that has been on multi-city FM under temporary licences.
A Coast 105 poster from the early 1990s from Brian Greene’s collection.
This interview gives a fascinating insight into the similarities and differences between the 1980s and 1990s pirates and is also a lesson in how radio needs to reinvent itself to survive.
The rear of Radio Dublin at 58 Inchicore Road in 1988 (photo courtesy of DX Archive).
Radio Dublin was the most high-profile of the pirates to defy the new broadcasting laws that came into effect on at midnight on 31st December 1988. The station was served with a prohibition notice to cut off its electricity and phones and it left the air suddenly at 9.44am on 19th January 1989, returning within an hour using a generator. However, embarrassingly for the Minister for Communications, the station went to the High Court later that day and got an injunction obliging the authorities to restore services until the end of the month.
This is a recording of Radio Dublin owner Eamonn Cooke on his weekly Station News slot on Sunday 22nd January 1989, where he mentions the injunction and the upcoming High Court challenge to the constitutionality of the broadcasting laws. He says that Radio Dublin is still on AM, FM and shortwave and hopes to continue until April or May despite the uncertainty. Cooke also announces that 15 or 16 pirates are still on air or have returned, including Radio North in Donegal, Erneside Community Radio in Cavan, Radio Star in Monaghan and Zee 103 in Louth. There are some breaks in the recording and it seems to be an edited version. Thanks to John Breslin for the donation.
Radio Dublin continued for many more years, only closing down permanently in 2002 following the conviction of Cooke for sexually abusing children. He was jailed in 2003 and again in 2007 and died in 2016 while on temporary release. If you require support with this issue, you can contact the organisation One in Four.
David Baker a few years previously on Radio Donnybrook (photo courtesy of Dave Reddy).
Southside 95 began broadcasting on 94.9 FM from Dún Laoghaire in south Co. Dublin on 7th December 1987 under the direction of Paul Vincent who had worked in various stations previously including Sunshine Radio. Many familiar names in the station’s early days included former KLAS DJs David Baker, Bryan Lambert and Dan O’Sullivan and Peter Madison who had worked with stations such as Sunshine Radio, Radio Nova, Magic 103 and Boyneside Radio. According to the Anoraks UK Weekly Report on 28th February 1988, Southside was facing financial problems and several of the staff had left or were about to do so. In March 1988, the station moved to new premises in the Dún Laoghaire Shopping Centre and continued to be mentioned in Anoraks Ireland and Anoraks UK lists.
Southside business card (courtesy of DX Archive)
Following the launch of Chris Cary’s Radio Nova International by satellite from Surrey in England on 1st May 1988, speculation grew that Irish stations would carry all or part of the service. The edition of Weekly Report from 22nd May contained the following: ‘It is thought that many Irish stations may invest in a satellite dish and relay Nova, inserting their own adverts in opt-out advert spaces, and leaving Nova’s national adverts in’.
Southside 95 began relaying Nova in July for substantial periods of the day and by the end of the month had ceased its own programming altogether. The ‘Nova Night Network’ service – overnight programming from the satellite station – was relayed by many Irish pirates in the latter part of 1988, including Coast 103 in Galway, ABC in Waterford and Liberty Radio and Centre Radio in Dublin. The relay was switched off at 1pm on 31st December 1988.
This is a recording of David Baker on Southside 95 on 21st January 1988 from 1345-1421. The style is a mixture of easy listening music and community announcements and there are references to other magazine and specialist programmes. The recording is courtesy of Robin Dee of Golden Radio International.
