'It was fresh, very risky and a bit of novelty': the early days of CBC.

Brothers Noel and Trevor Welch were both DJs with the Cork Broadcasting Company (CBC) and remained involved with radio in Cork during the pirate era and beyond. They co-authored The Jolly Roger: Pirate Radio Days in Cork, which was published in 2015. In that book, Noel remembers that pirate radio ‘struck a blow for pioneering DJs everywhere when stations first hit the airwaves in Cork in the late 1970s. It was fresh, very risky and a bit of a novelty. We hadn’t heard anything like it before. The pirates of the airwaves set the tone for pop radio in this country’.

Noel responded to an advert seeking DJs placed by CBC in The Evening Echo. He was working with the Echo at the time and remembers how the advert almost jumped off the page at him. Noel had worked previously in nightclubs but had no radio experience and even lacked the basic equipment to record a demo tape. He had to borrow his uncle’s radio-cassette player and recorded a demo spinning his favourite vinyl singles. Once offered a slot at CBC he had to keep his radio hobby a secret at work because of the suspicion between local press and pirate stations.

This recording of CBC features Noel Welch (known as Noel Evans on air) and Alan Edwards. The recording starts at around 1925 on 15^th June 1979 and is partially airchecked. Audio quality is poor due to the age of the cassette and the fact that this was recorded on a tape recorder held up to an AM radio. Thanks to Lillian O’Donoghue for the recording and photos.