Dublin's Pirate Days

27/07/2024

21/07/2024

Who remembers this beauty arriving into your town or village? In so many cases once RTE community radio had left a pirate radio station came on air. Were you involved with either?

27/06/2024

A blog about the history of broadcasting in Ireland

24/06/2024

I hope CnaM paying attention

Ofcom has published a statement for their Analogue Radio Technical Code consultation, and includes permission for AM stations to offer better quality audio.

21/06/2024

Raidió Rí-Rá is a chart-music radio service, which broadcasts pop music, entertainment news, pop culture and sports content, primarily aimed at, but not restricted to, young people between the ages of 5 and 34.
The station broadcasts entirely in Irish, and provides young people with an opportunity to engage with and listen to the Irish language in an informal, fun way, outside of the education system, and allows access to pop culture and pop-music through the medium of the
Irish language.

Raidió Rí-Rá will be available soon across Newry, Armagh and Down on our brand new digital radio service, launching soon.

13/06/2024

Oh dear

12/06/2024

Compilation of recordings from the Pirate radio station that ran in Castlebar in Co. Mayo in 1992/93....

12/06/2024

A new radio station using the name Atlantic 252 is set to launch on DAB.

27/05/2024

One of later pirates in the golden era in the 1980s. This is Midway Radio in Mullingar with plenty of support from Daniel O'Donnell & Mullingar native Joe Dolan

26/05/2024

I've been listening to Radio Star Country on 981 for the last 3 days. A mixture of live & recorded programmes with news at the top of the hour hijacked from independent news UK. Ads are all from NI but requests are from far and wide. I can see why it's so popular in the border area.

28/04/2024

27/04/2024

Top two photos is the Comet at Daunt Rock as a lightship, the middle two are the ship in Dun Laoghaire & Dublin Port where she was converted into a pirate radio station. A mast was added in Guernsey & then she was towed to the east coast of Scotland to broadcast as Radio Scotland. Later she moved to the west coast becoming Radio Scotland & Ireland before closing in August 1967

22/04/2024

Anyone going?!! ;) (We weren't responsible for the sh*te poster!! No idea WTF that's meant to be wearing a hat!!!!)

20/04/2024

In 1981 , I was 16. I went to bed with a transistor radio my uncle had given to me . A brother of my grandfather, he was a Cistercian father in a parish in California . He visited yearly. It was a time when pirate radio was at its height . Radio Dublin had split into a number of alternative stations . ARD Alternative Radio Dublin based in Whitehall Dublin 9 and the Big D in Camden st. The Big D broadcast on 273 m on MW band ( now defunct) as VHF/FM moved into the preferred format for technical listening. On that night , the radio was playing John Lennons IMAGINE non stop. The BiG D was sending out something very unusual. Word started to filter through that there had been an incident at a night club in the north of the city . The music , the same music played and replayed and word came that the incident was increasingly moving into an emergency situation. A transistor radio on 273 MW bought the news. John Lennons Imagine punctuated the updates . The horror of the night unfolded slowly. By daybreak the world was different. I was helping with my Dad in a pub in parkgate st . Some nights , we often stayed over, sleeping upstairs over the pub. I listened in that room . The next day , grown men , hard men , sat silent in the bar . The city was silent as word came and the numbers rose & rose & rose. Whispered asks to strangers , if they had family in Coolock or Raheny or a dozen other whispered parishes. The news came & came again and again. Harder each time. A city looking northward and wondering who might not come home . In the background John Lennon asked us all to Imagine.

19/04/2024

Here's another few old posters from Kiss FM Castlebar 1992-1993 and the "NRG Roadshow" at the townhall... But also a poster for The Attic - which was upstairs in the Sunflower....
1993 I think....

"Woolly Bully" (AKA Sheep) found these posters inside an old wardrobe at his parent's gaff a few years back while looking for his stash of vintage RTE Guides (Swimsuit editions)...

What a pity we don't have any old photos from the gigs - at the Town Hall - and the mental nights in Schillaci's - (after the local priests banned us from Town Hall!!😆😆

Castlebar

18/04/2024

Anyone remember these?

02/04/2024

The Longford Eye...
Face To Face Interview With...

EDDIE BOHAN
And His Historical Tour Of Drumlish Pubs

He may have been born in the capital of Ireland, but Eddie Bohan’s father was born in Drumshambo south “just over the Leitrim/Longford border near Drumlish, and he is obviously proud of his Longford roots.

The sixty-year-old has always been creative and recently hosted “a fact finding mission whereby he “presented a ninety-minute PowerPoint presentation delivered to a standing room only attendance.”

“It will,” he told the Longford Eye, eventually “all be correlated into a book that I hopefully have ready to be officially launched during the marquee festival in Drumlish.”

The exciting book in question is an extraordinary insight into the history of the pubs of Drumlish dating back to the early 1800s in a bid “to highlight their history amid the fear that pubs might possibly now seem to be an endangered species.”

Eddie has written extensively on the history of the pub trade, especially individual pubs presenting lectures and individual history books. “These have included The Stags Head, Murphy's of Rathmines and The Vintage, Irishtown.”

There is a phenomenal amount of work involved on his current book on the pubs of Drumlish, but it is, for him, a labour of love. “There's a lot of research gone into the subject already, with help from various publicans and former publicans in Drumlish. I've done a mountain of online research and visited both the Irish National Archives and the British Archives at Kew Gardens, and it has involved many hours of trawling through newspaper archives, Irish, British, and American as well as using ancestry.com.

Eddie has found the people of Drumlish County Longford extremely helpful to him in his research and wishes to thank them for their kindness. “The locals in and around Drumlish have provided photos, old pub licences, background information and most importantly their own memories.”

So can he give readers a taster of what’s between the pages of this imminent publication? “I've discovered that while today there are just four pubs operating in Drumlish there were at one time ten pubs in the village in the late 19th century. There are also stories of political shenanigans during elections, with the local clergy effectively trying to sway an election by buying any amount of whiskey given out by the publicans of Drumlish. I also have strange stories of after hour raids, mysterious deaths and how despite their inability to get served in a pub, many publicans of Drumlish were women!”

Eddie once wrote a popular book 'Thirst for Freedom' which detailed the role of pubs, publicans, and bar staff in the fight for Irish independence, the premise being that without the pubs of Ireland we'd still be part of the empire.”

Eddie, who also writes, lectures and has had numerous books published on the history of Irish radio is the founder of the Irish Pirate Radio Archive at Dublin City University and for his next project, will complete a book on the history of sectarian pirate radio in Belfast during the early years of the troubles.

As the people of the village of Drumlish and indeed all of County Longford eagerly await the publication of Eddie’s book he has one last request for readers of the Longford Eye – “perhaps if anyone has stories or photos to pass them on to me to help get a complete picture of the history of the pubs of Drumlish. Also, I’d like to pass on my thanks to all those who have so generously helped so far, especially Annette Kane from the Drumlish and Ballinamuck Historical Society!”

The Longford Eye would like to thank Eddie Bohan for his time is giving us this fascinating interview.

Photo: Eddie Bohan beside the impressive memorial in Drumlish village.

02/04/2024

1916 Ireland became the 1st nation to be declared by wireless as the rebels broadcast communiques written by Pearse, Plunkett & Connolly. Here are the original aerials & Marconi equipment used by the rebels owned by Phillip Turner who claimed after for his losses. My book Rebel Radio tells the full story of the world's first unlicensed radio station, the first pirate.

29/03/2024

According to Ronan O'Rahilly in a 1973 DeeJay magazine interview, before he left Ireland he made money selling contraband Spangles sweets (banned in the South but available in the North) & counterfeit stamps, put his money into buying and building racing cars. Here's a news report from April 1960, Ronan already gone to England, bemoaning his absence.