Boyneside Radio, based in Drogheda in Co. Louth, was a successful local and eventually regional radio station broadcasting to the northeast of Ireland and beyond from 1978-1988. This is a recording of the final few hours of Boyneside on the afternoon of its last day on air, 31st December 1988. Rather than its familiar medium wave and FM frequencies, this was taken from 6231 kHz shortwave, the transmitter of Radio Rainbow International which was linked to Boyneside and used specially for the occasion. Reception ranges from fair to poor with a heterodyne in the second half of the recording but it gives a sense of how shortwave listeners, especially those outside Ireland, experienced the closedown.
Eddie Caffrey pictured in 1986 (courtesy of Eddie himself).
The recording runs from 1348-1502 and features Eddie Caffrey on air with a host of Boyneside DJs and other staff. There are also plenty of farewell messages from loyal listeners who will miss their local station. We thank John Breslin for the donation.
The history of Boyneside is already well documented on this site and all recordings of the station can be found here. For a comprehensive account of the 1988 closedowns, see the Radiowaves site.
Boyneside Radio North AM mast just on the border (courtesy of Eddie Caffrey).
This three-minute clip includes highlights related to the transnational nature of Irish pirate radio in the late 1970s and 1980s. By accident or design, stations were heard beyond the borders of the Irish state on FM and especially on AM and there were also part-time shortwave operators aimed at international DXers.
Constitution Hill in Aberystwyth where Leon Tipler recorded Irish radio (photo by John Walsh).
The first segment is of Arklow Community Radio as heard by the late British radio enthusiast Leon Tipler on FM in Aberystwyth on the Welsh coast on 13th August 1983. This is followed by a night-time recording of Radio Nova playing a request for Leon at his home in Kidderminster in the English midlands on 17th September 1982.
Radio Nova sticker from the 50 kW days (courtesy of Ian Biggar).
The third segment is the iconic top-of-the-hour ident of Radio Nova recorded on 17th July 1984. This is voiced by station boss Chris Cary who stresses that Nova broadcasts from and not to Dublin on 738 kHz. The AM transmitter was using 50 kW at the time in order to reach the British market.
KISS FM sticker (courtesy of Ian Biggar).
The fourth segment is of KISS FM, a high-powered FM and AM station based in Monaghan on the border and aiming its signal at the lucrative Belfast market. This was recorded in Scotland on 13th June 1988. The firth extract is an advert on the Louth station Boyneside Radio promoting a céilí in an Irish centre in Lankashire. Although recorded in Ireland, it is evidence that Boyneside had listeners across the Irish Sea. The final extract is from August 1985 and features one of the many Irish shortwave stations that aimed at international audiences. Radio Rainbow International broadcast on 6240 kHz but this is a studio recording.
Radio Rainbow letter from 1986 (courtesy Ian Biggar).
These recordings are from our various collections and are discussed in more detail in our podcast focusing on the transnational nature of Irish pirate radio.
The Radio Rainbow International transmitter (courtesy of Kieran Murray).
Kieran Murray was a well-known voice on the pirates from the late 1970s and had a deep knowledge of the Irish scene, presenting Free Radio Shows on various stations. Here, he shares a fascinating story about one programme that was never broadcast due to a raid by the authorities but survived nonetheless.
When I left Radio Carousel (Navan) to join Boyneside Radio in early 1985, Eddie Caffrey told me about the shortwave station he had been running called Radio Rainbow International. The station broadcast each Sunday morning, 09:00 to about 13:00, on 6240 kHz (in the 48-meter band) and with a powerful signal, using about 500 watts, it reached most of Europe and beyond.
Radio Rainbow International logo (courtesy of Ian Biggar).
The format was oldies, requests and relays for other pirate radio stations (mostly from those in other European countries that risked being raided in their own countries if they broadcast). The listeners loved it and the reception reports came flooding in – from Europe and beyond. We even received a reception report from the United States!
So, Eddie invited me to present a weekly 60-minute show, which we called ‘The Free Radio Show’. Each show was given a number, rather than a date, because I just was never sure what date that show would be broadcast on and because the shows were not date specific, it left the option open to repeat a programme if we needed. As it turned out, we never had to do this!
So, we began with Free Radio Show #1. Each show was recorded by me, over the course of a week, in the spare studio of Boyneside Radio, in Donaghy’s Mill, Drogheda, Co. Louth. I used a C120 cassette (single use only, as the recording tape was so thin, so I never re-used them). The show consisted of segments; the intro, listeners’ letters, 5 minutes of jingles, radio station feature and finally free radio news from the past week. The theme tune I used was a track called ‘Man Of Action’ by the Les Reed Orchestra, an old pirate favourite tune, as this had previously been used as the theme for the offshore radio station Radio Northsea International in the 1970s.
Eddie Caffrey of Radio Rainbow International and Boyneside Radio (courtesy of Kieran Murray).
So, each show got recorded, numbered and completed by Friday and was ready for broadcast that Sunday. Meanwhile, Eddie (who was the engineer and part-owner of Boyneside Radio) added an AM transmitter (1 KW AM on 1521 kHz) and then added an FM stereo transmitter, completing the output of Radio Rainbow International – on AM, FM and short wave.
The shows continued each week, until we got to Show #49, which was due for broadcast on Sunday 19th April 1987. I did the intro, listeners’ letters, 5 minutes of jingles and the radio station feature – and that is where the recording stops. The last bit was for the free radio news but I never got to complete this. When Boyneside Radio was raided on Wednesday 15th April 1987, I was ready to record the free radio news when the Gardaí and Department of Communications officials arrived and took everything: cassette decks, records, mixers, turntables, microphones, tapes – anything that wasn’t nailed down! Among the cassettes they took was the C120 cassette that had my part-finished Show #49.
So we had no Free Radio Show for the following two Sundays, 19th and 26th April 1987, but we came back for a special show on 3rd May and featured an interview with Eddie that discussed the raid on Boyneside Radio. The studio recording attached here was never actually broadcast, because I had to do an entirely new show featuring details of the raid and the interview with Eddie Caffrey about what happened. After each show was broadcast, I used to receive requests for copies of each show from various listeners, so the C120 cassette of the previous week would be posted out to someone who requested this. As a result, I do not have any studio copies of the Free Radio Show except for this one, the ‘unfinished’ Free Radio Show #49. The only reason we have this original recording is because all the equipment was returned after the raid, including that famous C120 cassette. So, in a roundabout way, the Gardaí did us a favour in helping to preserve a studio copy of this show!
The history of Boyneside Radio has already been well-documented in our special Northeast Series and numerous full recordings, airchecks and jingles can be heard here. This newly-digitised recording is of the original tape of Boyneside made by British radio enthusiast Leon Tipler during a 1982 trip to Ireland and featured in his documentary ‘The Irish Pirates’.
The date is Monday 13th September and Mike Cluskey is on the breakfast programme, standing in for Daire Nelson. The recording begins at 0818 and includes news headlines and plenty of ads, including one for units to let at Donaghy’s Mill in Drogheda, where Boyneside was based. 225 metres medium wave and 98 and 99 FM are announced.
The Boyneside FM mast at Tullyesker near Drogheda (photo courtesy of Eddie Caffrey).
There is interference towards the end of the recording, which was made in Dublin. This was the beginning of a period of growth for Boyneside after the station was reunited with the breakaway Community Radio Drogheda in the summer of 1982.
This recording is from the Leon Tipler Tapes Collection, donated to us by Steve England.
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.
