Dublin Archives - Page 72 of 84 - Irish Pirate Radio Audio Archive

18th May 20202nd May 2024

Sunshine Radio reports Radio Nova raid

This is a recording of Sunshine Radio from the 18th of May 1983 from 1722-1738 recorded from 531 kHz AM. The presenter is Eugene Higgins. News headlines at 5.30 are read by Emer Dolan (Woodful) and refer to the Radio Nova raid that morning and plans by the opposition Fianna Fáil party to press once again for legislation on local radio. The following morning Sunshine Radio would itself be raided and put off the air.

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

18th May 20202nd May 2024

ABC Radio anticipates raids on pirates

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ABC Radio was one of the smaller Dublin stations on air from 1981 to 1984. This recording is from the 18th of May 1983 from 1436-1451 and features Gerry Williams on air, who says that all the pirates could be in jeopardy following the raid on Radio Nova that morning. ABC was in fact one of only three stations in Dublin to remain on air following the 19th of May 1983. ABC was based for a while at the Ivy Rooms Hotel (now the Gate Hotel) on Parnell Street in the north inner-city. In 1984 it merged with another small station Westside Radio to become Radio Annabel, which also broadcast from the Ivy Rooms Hotel.

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

18th May 20202nd May 2024

Radio Dublin during 1983 raids

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Here’s a short recording of the late Seán Day (Murphy) on Radio Dublin on the 18th of May 1983 from 1639-1651. There are plenty of requests and dedications but no mention of the raid on Radio Nova that morning. Radio Dublin was one of only three Dublin stations to continue broadcasting after most of the pirates left the air voluntarily the following day. Many DJs from those stations flocked to the cramped Radio Dublin studio in Inchicore and the station’s popularity soared as listeners re-tuned their radios. In 1981, Seán Day set up Double R Radio, a small Dublin pirate, from his house also in Inchicore.

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

17th May 20207th August 2021

Full recording: Nitesky 96 (Dublin)

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On the 1st of July 1986 Dublin’s Capitol Radio launched a night-time service from 6.00pm called Nitesky 96 which aimed to offer more specialist music shows and talk programmes. For some years previous to this Capitol had specialised in album tracks rather than the latest hits and it moved more and more into the alternative/indie realm with the launch of Nitesky 96. In its later years Capitol/Nitesky ran a popular ‘Alternative Night’ every week at McGonagle’s nightclub in Dublin and it was known for supporting the lively Irish rock and indie scene throughout the 1980s.

This recording from 1755-1840 on the 16th of July 1986 features the switchover from Capitol to Nitesky with Dave Carney (aka Alan Cantwell who would go on to work in licensed local radio and TV3). News at 6.00pm is followed by the evening Magazine Show presented by the station owners Conor Brooks and Stephen Ryan. The music is more MOR rock than indie but Nitesky had plenty of programming showcasing the less mainstream material. The recording was made from 95.8 FM and the audio is distinctive because it lacks processing or compression and gives the full dynamic range of sound including crackle on vinyl records. You can hear Capitol/Nitesky jingles here.

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

16th May 202022nd September 2022

Dublin hobby station KFM

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KFM was a part-time hobby station broadcasting from Sandyford in south Dublin in 1986. It was run by well-known anorak Gerard Roe who had previously hosted a popular Free Radio Show (FRC) on Radio Annabel and Radio Dublin Channel 2. This recording is from 13^th April 1986 from 1420-1505 and features Gerard on air. There is an advert for Anoraks UK and KFM jingles. Frequencies announced are 106 FM and there’s a reference to a test transmission on shortwave on 6240 kHz in the 48 metre band. Gerard shares his memories of KFM:

I had a studio set up in my house that I used for recording and some production – mainly for my own amusement. At one stage I connected it up to a 25 watt FM TX, just for a bit of experimentation at weekends. A friend living nearby had build an experimental shortwave transmitter and we linked to it for a few weekends (Shamrock Radio International). This was at the time when I had been off air after Radio Annabel closed and also around the time when I did a few programmes for David Baker at Kiss FM in Foley Street.

The signal from KFM was very local (just around Sandyford/Dundrum), but because of the location height, it also fell down into Bayside where Brian and Dónal Greene were probably the only other two listeners to the station [Brian is co-founder of Pirate.ie]. It didn’t last long, as even I got fed up of having a radio station in the family home. I remember one Sunday morning, after a very late Saturday night before, being woken up to be told that there was a phone call for me, from Brian and Dónal, asking if KFM was coming on air that day. I probably decided then that operating a station from the house wasn’t going to work out in the long run.

That studio was also used in 1988 to record the first programmes for test transmissions from Dublin South Community Radio. I was involved in the early days of the first management committee and I trained up some of the presenters to go on air for a short pirate run, just before the closure deadline of December 31^st. I did some early weekend mornings programmes on the station for the first very low powered live tests, from a temporary studio assembled in a courtyard off Dundrum Main Street (opposite the original Dundrum shopping center). The station eventually was licensed in 1995 as Dublin’s first community station (now known as Dublin South FM). By that time, I had started the Anorak Hour with Simon Maher at Coast FM and was back on air with an FRC format, for the first time in about 11 years (since the closure of Annabel).

That’s about all that can be said for KFM …. and a lesson learnt that there was always someone out there, tuned in with a tape recorder, back in the olden days!

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