When
Dublin had two radio stations and both of them came from two
ordinary houses.
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| All
the people of Ireland listened to the one radio station for
around fifty years, originally called 2RN, as in a song "Come
back to Éireann". In the 1970's it was down in The
Irish Times as RTE Radio while if you read The Irish Independent
the programme schedule was headed Radio Éireann. But
that's not the way it is to-day and the change happened at Christmas
1977... |
Above:
The Radio Dublin house.
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the image to view larger version
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Above:
The ARD house.
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the image to view larger version
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In
the pirate radio sub-culture of the mid-seventies this house
rather was the home of Radio Dublin, the station operated from
this Cabra house during '75 and '76 until a change was made
in (February '77) to the home of Eamonn J.P. Cooke in Inchicore,
this man took over the station in May of that year. And so in
this way the above house became the home of Alternative Radio
Dublin a few months later (July '77). This station A.R.D. had
existed since the previous summer, but now it was situated in
this house. This sets the picture for that Christmas when the
pirate breakthrough happened "unexpected and unlooked for",
as it says in Hot Press at the time. |
The
Dáil adjourned for the Christmas recess on Thursday
December 15th, and the late Brian Lenihan standing in for
the Minister for the Environment, took a question on skateboarding
on Grafton street, the T.D.'s would be back on January 31st.
But in the meantime all had changed utterly. According to
The Sunday World "Radio Dublin shock for RTE" regular
broadcasting began on Radio Dublin from a "cramped backroom",
on December 17th.
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