Radio Nova satellite Archives - Irish Pirate Radio Audio Archive

Full recording: Centre Radio (Dublin) — A flyer for Centre Radio courtesy of Eamonn Roe.

Centre Radio began as a hobby station on December 19th 1986 from Baldoyle in northeast Dublin and came on air during school holidays. Brian Greene of Pirate.ie was one of the original founders and the other half of this site John Walsh was also involved. By 1987 the station had developed into a youth project and was training up to 80 young people in radio. From February 1988 Centre was on air every evening and weekend from Bayside. It was one of the last stations in Dublin to closedown at midnight on New Year’s Eve 1988.

This recording is of an oldies show presented by Bobby Gibbson (aka Brian Greene) on 25th September 1988. It includes community news and stations idents by Richard Taylor (aka John Walsh). Despite the claims in the idents, Centre broadcast in mono only, with the exception of its overnight stereo relay of the Radio Nova satellite service via the former Southside Radio FM TX in Dublin. You can read more about the history of Centre here.

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Airchecks: Radio Nova — A Nova envelope from 1982 (courtesy of DX Archive).

There’s plenty of Radio Nova material available online already and we don’t intend to compete with that. Here is a selection from our the Pirate.ie collection of airchecks of Radio Nova from 1984 to 1986. We also include two recordings from the Nova satellite service from the UK in 1988 which was relayed on FM in Dublin and used as an overnight service by some stations.

A Radio Nova holiday giveaway from 1985. The presenter is Dave Harvey.

The famous Radio Nova £10 giveaway from 1985. These two examples are followed by the top of the hour ident and a weather forecast from John O’Hara.

A promo for DJ Rick Dees of KIIS-FM in Los Angeles whose Weekly Top 40 was syndicated on Nova. This is from 1986.

A Bill Mitchell ident for the Radio Nova satellite service from the UK, as relayed on 94.9 FM in Dublin in 1988.

A top of the hour jingle and the IRN service followed by an aircheck from the Radio Nova satellite service as relayed on 94.9 FM in Dublin in 1988.

Listen to interviews with former Nova presenter Tom Hardy (RIP) here and newsreader Bryan Dobson here. You can hear historian Eddie Bohan describe the growth of Radio Nova here.