Galway Archives - Page 6 of 13 - Irish Pirate Radio Audio Archive

27th December 202126th December 2021

Closedown of Galway’s KFM

KFM flyer (courtesy Ian Biggar).

KFM was the longest-running of the later Galway pirate stations, broadcasting from November 1986 until the end of 1988. It was first based in the village of Moycullen in Connemara and later moved into the city centre before returning to Moycullen towards the end of its run. The high transmitter site gave it good coverage over a wide area of Galway city and county.

This is the final hour-and-a-half of KFM on 31^st December 1988. The show is presented by Shane Keating, who was well-known to local anoraks because he presented a DX programme during the final months of the station. There are farewell messages and live requests phoned in by listeners and one of KFM’s founders Maureen Browne pays tribute to DJs, advertisers and supporters. It’s a low-key closedown compared to some other stations and KFM leaves the airwaves at exactly midnight following the national anthem.

The recording above is from 2238-2325 and the final 35 minutes are heard in the recording below. They were made from 95 FM in north Clare, outside the core reception area, so the signal is fair at times. Thanks to John Breslin for the donation. For a comprehensive account of the 1988 closedowns, see the Radiowaves site.

Final 35 minutes of KFM.

27th December 202127th December 2021

Closedown of Galway’s Coast 103

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This is the final 90 minutes of one of the more popular and successful Galway stations towards the end of the pirate era, Coast 103. Launched in mid-1987, by 1988 it had merged with Limerick station Hits 954, was calling itself Coast Hot Hits and could be heard on a string of AM and FM transmitters covering an area from Mayo to Cork.

The final evening on 31^st December 1988 was broadcast from Richardson’s Bar in Eyre Square, Galway and featured various people dropping in to share their memories of Coast 103. Seán Costello is heard first and is followed by closedown host Barry Williams who is joined by Tommy Kelly, Tom Cuffe, Shane Martin, Brian Davis and Keith York (RIP). The first recording above is from 2232-2318 and the second below from 2318-0004. Both were recorded from 102.47 FM and are kindly donated by John Breslin. Thanks also to Shane Martin.

Final 45 minutes of Coast 103.

20th September 202122nd September 2021

Fossett’s Circus on Galway’s Atlantic Sound

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In the first half of 1984, Galway pirate Atlantic Sound broadcast a varied schedule of music and original speech programming. This is a clip from station founder Alan Russell’s magazine programme from May or June 1984. Seán Costello interviews Annie, a South African trapeze artist with Fossett’s Circus at Fairgreen in Galway city centre during a visit by the circus to town. It was recorded on a Marantz Superscope machine. Below is a longer interview by Seán with the late Teddy Fossett who provides a brief history of the circus before taking the opportunity to share some grievances about the circus industry. Seán attempts to wrap up the interview after 15 minutes but Teddy is in full flight about the competition with Circus Hoffmans from the UK.

Atlantic Sound interview with Teddy Fossett, 1984.

The photos were taken in the Atlantic Sound studio at the end of 1983 when the station had begun testing. A full schedule began in 1984. Pictured are a Canary 12- channel mixer, Technics decks, a JVC cassette deck, Sennheiser headphones, a Shure mic and the news reader’s desk. We thank Alan Russell for the donation. In the second half of 1984 after his departure, the station was re-launched as a ‘hot hits’ format.

16th September 202116th September 2021

Time World News Service on Atlantic Sound

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The Time World News Service (TWNS) was set up in early 1984 in order to bring the work of Time Magazine to radio stations around the world. A letter from the publisher of Time on April 16^th that year said that TNWS was ‘a new entry in radio journalism that will draw its material from the pages of TIME and its 87 correspondents and 32 news bureaus around the world’. TWNS was recorded in New York and broadcast in more than 100 US cities and 20 other countries including Ireland, where it was organised by the late Robbie Robinson of Sunshine Radio.

One Irish pirate station to broadcast TWNS was Atlantic Sound in Galway, whose founder Alan Russell recalls that they received a special delivery each month with the news features on cassettes.

‘From memory it cost £40 per month – a pint of Guinness was £1.37 back then and £40 would have been an average weekly rent on a good flat or small house’, he said.

It seems that the service was less popular than expected and was phased out from the summer of 1984.

The recording above is an edition of TWNS about the arms race and below is another edition about film releases. Both date from March or April 1984, were broadcast on Atlantic Sound and are donated kindly by Alan Russell.

15th September 202115th September 2021

‘Never more than a minute from music’: Galway’s Atlantic Sound

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Atlantic Sound began testing at the end of 1983 and launched a full schedule at the start of 1984. A report in the Galway Advertiser on 29^th December 1983 said that the station aimed to be ‘a fusion of RTÉ Radio One, Community Radio and Radio Nova’. Presumably the reference to ‘community radio’ was to the temporary local RTÉ stations on air at the time. Atlantic Sound’s founder journalist Alan Russell was quoted as saying that the station would buy equipment from the BBC and comply with the specifications required by the proposed radio authority. He added that it would not be a pop music station.

In mid-1984, after the arrival from Cork of two DJs with an offshore radio background, the late Keith York and Don Stevens, Alan Russell left Atlantic Sound and the broad schedule was changed to a ‘hot hits’ format. In this recording from the August bank holiday weekend of 1984, Seán Costello plays requests for mostly chart music and generic jingles are heard. He says that Atlantic Sound is ‘never more than a minute away from music’ and there’s a reference to a £1,000 giveaway but the thin commercial breaks suggest that the station was not making much money.

The recording was made from 99 FM and runs from 1858-1945 but is undated. Atlantic had moved from 1107 to 1026 kHz AM by this stage and had added FM. Thanks to Shay Geoghegan for the donation and to Alan Russell for background information.