Irish Pirate Radio Audio Archive
Open Free Radio Archive
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Veteran broadcaster Aidan Cooney worked on many pirate stations in Dublin from the late 1970s including Radio Dublin, ARD, Treble TR, Sunshine Radio and Radio Nova. Since 1989 he has been a presenter on commercial radio and television and is currently heard on Q102 in Dublin.
On the Q102 breakfast show on 24th November 2020, Aidan was brought down memory lane about his pirate days with Irish Sun entertainment editor Ken Sweeney.
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We’re delighted to announce episode #2 of the Pirate.ie podcast which explores themes covered in our growing archive of Irish pirate radio.
AM broadcasting, widely used by the pirates up to the end of the 1980s, allowed radio signals to travel far and wide beyond the borders of the state. Even small stations could be carried long distances thanks to the magic of night-time AM propagation but dozens of pirates along the border deliberately beamed their signals northwards. With 50 kW of power at its peak, the Dublin super-pirate Radio Nova aimed specifically at the northwest coast of Britain. Ireland also had many hobby shortwave pirates which could be heard thousands of miles from home.
In episode #2, John Walsh and Brian Greene explore how AM spillover, both accidental and deliberate, brought the Irish pirates to a bigger audience.
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Pirate.ie was featured on Castlebar’s community radio station, CRC FM this week. Brian Greene spoke to Angela Faul on The Chatroom on Thursday 12th November 2020 about our ongoing work in documenting and sharing Ireland’s pirate radio history.
You can listen to CRC FM in the Castlebar area on 102.9 FM or online here.
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We are delighted to host a documentary about the 1980s pirates in and around Athlone, Co. Westmeath with the kind permission of Athlone Community Radio.
‘Heartland Pirates’ was originally broadcast on 2nd November 2020 from 1700-1755 and features stations such as Signal 102, Midland Radio and Radio Carol Ann. Among those taking part are many of those involved in the original Athlone pirates including Pete Casey, TR Dallas, Noel Lackey, Roy Jennings, Peter Mooney, Geraldine O’Sullivan, Barry Flynn, Val Beaumont and Gerry O’Reilly. Our own interview with Gerry is available here.
‘Heartland Pirates’ was edited and produced by Athlone Community Radio manager Irena Djak Cvetkovic. The documentary was supported by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the television licence fee. For further information, click here.
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We’re delighted to announce the first episode of our new series of the Pirate.ie podcast. In this series, John Walsh and Brian Greene will discuss various aspects of Irish pirate radio history. We’ll have interviews with those who were involved in pirate radio and also bring you commentary on different types of stations from around the country.
Episode #1 is a discussion of the significance of the Irish pirate radio era of 1978-1988 which we are currently featuring in depth on Pirate.ie. The analysis is based on our recent article in the Journal of Radio and Audio Media which examined the political, economic, social, cultural and technological importance of the pirates for the Irish radio sector.