This is a recording of Dublin station the Big D in the early hours of New Year’s Day 1980. To mark the occasion, there is a link-up with Denis Murray by a poor quality phone line to a pub at John’s Lane Church in the city centre. Revellers, many of them worse for wear, come on the line to talk to Vincent Stewart in the studio. Clearly Big D is delighted at the departure of rival station ARD, judging by the canned laughter when Vincent announces that the other station has just closed down.
Other DJs and staff are in the studio with best wishes for the new decade. There are pleas for peace given the ongoing horrors of the Troubles and the broadcast ends with the Garda Síochána choir singing ‘Let There be Peace on Earth’. This is followed by pre-recorded music through the night. The recording was made from 273 metres (1116 kHz) from 0054-0120 on 1st January 1980. Thanks to Shay Geoghegan for the donation.
The late 1970s was a key period of growth for pirate radio in Dublin, with hot competition developing between Radio Dublin and rival breakaway stations ARD and the Big D. This recording from the medium wave band on 31st December 1979 gives a flavour of how the pirates rang in the new decade that would prove so crucial for Irish radio. It runs from 2351-0035 and switches between ARD on 273 metres, which was due to close down that night, and the Big D on 273 metres.
Paul Vincent winds down ARD in the company of the late Dave C and financial backer Bernard Llewellyn, who explains that the station is closing down in order to apply for a licence. Optimistically, he predicts that local radio will be legalised by June 1980. The late Don Moore, who invited Llewellyn into ARD, is also heard in the background and one of the DJs to say his goodbyes is none other than Ian Dempsey. ARD left the airwaves just after half past midnight but pretty much everyone involved in it – bar Llewellyn – returned in the form of Radio 257 within a few days.
The recording also includes snippets of the Big D’s New Year’s Eve celebrations, including a scratchy phone connection with Dennis Murray who is in the company of drunker revellers in the city centre. We thank Shay Geoghegan for his donation.
Brian Greene on air and John Walsh in the ‘newsroom’, 31st December 1988.
Centre Radio closed down at exactly midnight on 31st December 1988 in compliance with new legislation which was supposed to silence pirate radio and herald the legalisation of the sector. From what we can establish, Centre was one of just five stations in Dublin still broadcasting that evening, the others being Capitol Radio, Phoenix Radio (Blanchardstown), Dreamtime Radio (a hobby station in Glasnevin) and of course Radio Dublin which defied the new law.
Brian Greene prepares to close down Centre Radio at midnight.
This is the final 42 minutes of Centre Radio from 2322 to 0000 presented by Brian Greene. The final song was ‘I want to be free’ by Toyah Wilcox, which was the station’s anthem. Listen right to the end when after the final station ident, the transmitter is switched off and 94.2 FM falls silent.
L-R: Eamonn Roe, Tom Berry and John Walsh after Centre closed down.
It was a seriously downbeat New Year’s party at the Mid-Sutton Community Centre in the early hours of New Year’s Day 1989 as the new radio era dawned with only Radio Dublin to disrupt the government’s plans.
Brian and John after the midnight closedown.
Brian’s reflections
Centre Radio in 1988 was the end of a run of four years of my youth where I spent every free hour involved in radio. Not just the DJing but the building, planning and keeping stations on air in oases of time blocks where I could put stations on for holidays or breaks or even weekends. Then came Centre Radio 88 and it was a project without end: full-time, on air daily and gaining real community kudos as we put down roots in Bayside.
As an example of the community roots we developed, the following is a true story. We were a 40-watt station. The transmitter on FM was unusual for the era in that it was a valve transmitter. The voltages in a valve transmitter are high tension using transformers. Transformers degrade over time and melt down, or at least the one we had was dying while frying. We badly needed a new transformer and we took to the airwaves with a promo in our programming asking the community to donate a 600-volt transformer to the station. We had the news item added to the Bayside Parish Newsletter (the notice must have looked odd among the usual Novena of Grace and Pioneer Total Abstinence Association dates for meetings notices). Our prayers were answered as a parishioner who read our cry for help, delivered three transformers to our studio and we were grateful for the community spirit in action. It was a good deed from a good Samaritan (I don’t think I can milk any more puns from this story!)
So it was a project without end until Ray Burke TD of Fianna Fáil announced that all pirates had to shut down by December 31st 1988. We unlike most stations took this to mean on the 31st not the 30th (before the 31st). The period from 1978-1988 for pirate radio or free radio, as we called it back then, saw massive development in the sector (see our paper on the topic here). But following Burke’s introduction of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1988, free radio changed forever and its growth was badly disrupted.
Community radio was neglected in the shake out of new commercial radio. The new stations were tame imitations of the former pirates. It would be seven years before community radio had a chance to start. The Centre Radio crew didn’t give up and applied for a licence as Bay Radio Group. Near FM won that licence overlapping our area in a small way. Centre became Radio Caroline Dublin from 1989-2001 (one of the longest running continuous pirates on air in Ireland). The core gang didn’t break up, didn’t leave radio and many are still involved to this day. We just never got to have Bayside Community Radio and it wouldn’t work now. But something different would work.
Centre was a youth radio service but with enough adults and young adults around and some serious radio heads there was never a bedroom radio vibe to the station. The dedication of the crew at the time was massive. We went out with a bang. And stayed on air to the end. The tapes (archived here) remind me of a time when radio was the social media and through study and archive creation both John and I now know that ‘radio was the first social media’ is not a glib throwaway comment but in fact the truth. TV was and still is not as accessible as radio and radio for me was the medium of choice that has the power – and is yet to have its finest hour. We shall overcome. Only The Strong Survive. Catch Us If You Can. Long live free radio.
A quiet New Year dawns at Mid-Sutton Community Centre.
John’s reflections
It was an emotional time then and the recording still stirs plenty of feelings as I listen back decades later. On New Year’s Eve 1988 I had gone full circle: two-and-a-half years previously I had first cut my broadcasting teeth on the predecessor to Centre Radio, Big Beat Radio, set up by Brian and others in June 1986. I was also involved with Centre from its earliest days and went on to work at KLAS, an easy listening station playing music for my grandparents but luckily located in the same housing estate as I grew up. It was to Centre that I returned at the end of the pirate era, as we worked day and night to keep the station on air throughout Christmas 1988 and right up to the final evening. That marked my final pirate broadcast but the free radio spirit never left me and it is a pleasure to keep it alive through this archive.
We were just kids having fun and nobody lost their job or fell on hard times as a result, but looking back now, there’s no doubt that radio got me through my teenage years, helped me work out who I was and kept me out of trouble – how ironic, given that what we were doing was illegal! What replaced the pirates was but a pale imitation of the golden era of 1978-1988 and the government was particularly neglectful of the community sector of which Centre Radio formed a part. But Centre and other stations gave me a great start in radio and on the back of my experience, radio and television journalism became my trade and I earned my crust from it throughout the 1990s. I’m delighted to be still involved through my local community station Flirt FM in Galway, but will never forgot the excitement of those heady teenage pirate years in 1980s Dublin.
The final record played on Midwest is handed by Chris Carroll to Denise Moran (photo by Michael Connaughton).
Midwest Radio was one of the west’s most popular radio stations, coming on air initially for just a few months at the end of 1978 and returning full-time from November 1985. Set up by dancehall promoter Paul Claffey and local DJ Chris Carroll, it was based at the Midas Nightclub in Ballyhaunis and played a popular diet of Irish and country music.
Paul Claffey with Midwest staff and friends at the farewell concert (photo by Michael Connaughton).
The station agreed to close on 30th December 1988 in case of any breach of the midnight deadline on New Year’s Eve. According to a history of the station, Magic and Madness: The Midwest Radio Phenomenon, the station’s single phone line went into meltdown when Paul Claffey announced the closure date a few weeks before Christmas. In a sign of its huge popularity across Mayo, local TD Jim Higgins was among those who led a campaign to allow Midwest to continue beyond the New Year’s Eve deadline.
The packed Midas Nightclub for the farewell concert on 30th December 1988 (photo by Michael Connaughton).
A final farewell concert at the Midas was arranged for the night of Friday, 30th December. From 10am when it opened its doors, crowds of fans descended on the nightclub from across Mayo and such was the traffic chaos that Gardaí had to ask Midwest to stop advertising the event. The final programme was presented by former Garda John Duggan who had begun his pirate career when still a serving member of the force.
Directors of Midwest Radio at the IRTC hearing in Galway for the Mayo licence, 3rd March 1989 (photo by Michael Connaughton).
Over a thousand people packed into the Midas for Midwest’s final concert which included country singers such as TR Dallas, Declan Nerney and Kevin Prendergast. Paul Claffey paid tribute to Midwest presenters and behind the scenes staff, inviting them all onto the stage to rapturous applause. Some of the musicians credited Midwest with their success, mentioning how it and other pirates such as Breffni Radio in Co. Cavan had showcased country music when it was ignored by RTÉ. There were also confident predictions that Midwest would be back and although most of the pirates lost out in the new regime, Midwest returned as a licensed station on Monday, 24th July 1989. The station continues to be highly successful to this day.
This recording is of the final hour of Midwest live from the Midas, made from 98.6 FM from 0056-0158 on 31st December 1988. We thank John Breslin for the donation and James Laffey for the photos.
No smiles from Brian Greene and John Walsh as they prepare for closedown on 31st December 1988.
The final two hours of Centre Radio from 10pm on New Year’s Eve were presented by Bobby Gibbson (Brian Greene) with other presenters dropping in to say their goodbyes during the evening. Richard Taylor (John Walsh) and Dave Evans (Eamonn Roe) were also on the final programme and there were plenty of memories of the two years of Centre Radio and reflections on the pirate scene in general.
Eamonn Roe (Dave Evans) on the final day.
There was also criticism of the gap that would be left by the closedown of the pirates but optimism that local licensed radio would be on the air within months. This recording is of the second last hour of Centre Radio from 2204-2304 on 31st December 1988.
