On December 22 1967, a group of schoolboys on their holidays began transmitting music and stories across the airwaves. The Irish Times noted that the transmissions had come from “somewhere south of the Liffey” and that the young boys had made two one hour broadcasts, at 8am and 12.30pm.
“…pop music programmes were interspersed with greetings from the announcer to school-friends. The transmissions also featured excerpts from the satirical magazine, Private Eye”
At 1.30, a young boy in fits of laughter told listeners that if they wanted to hear the news they had come to the wrong place and needed to turn to Radio Eireann.
The Department of Posts and Telegraphs didn’t see the funny side in this schoolboy prank. A spokesman warned the youngsters that they would track the schoolboys down. As far as I can see, the promised second day of broadcasting never came from Radio Jacqueline, and the boys probably went back to school in January with an excellent story to tell about how they made the national media through their DJ exploits.
A much more infamous station preceded Jacqueline, and that was Radio Juliet from Cork. A newspaper report into it in 1964 described it as the nations first “non-political pirate radio station”,and it was also the work of a small group of schoolchildren. They numbered a dozen or so. A spokesman for the group (in which the average age was 16) remarked that after a few days in operation over the summer holidays of ’64, it was becoming “too hot to handle” and it was time to wrap up operations. The boys had made a six shilling investment in the station, the cost of a transmitter which one of them built.
Amazingly, on the Cork station, the Irish language featured too.
“One third of the announcements were made in Irish, he said, and this was an ideal way of promoting the language”.
The late 1970s and early 1980s of course saw an explosion in pirate radio stations, not least in working class pockets of Dublin. In the summer of 1981 several Fianna Fail TDs and Ministers landed themselves in hot water for using pirate stations to advertise political message. Liam Lawlor used a Ballyfermot Pirate Station to thank the hugely popular Peace Corp youth group there for their efforts and a “great day” he’d enjoyed in their company.
What about Fine Gael?
“We’re using them in relation to our youth policy and Dublin plan” said Mr. Bill O’ Herlihy, the RTE sports commentator who is working in Fine Gael HQ.
Efforts to shut pirate stations across the capital frequently led to the courtroom. In 1978 “Captain” Eamonn Cooke of Radio Dublin was hit with a £35 fine for running a pirate station out of Sarsfield Terrace in Inchicore, the famous Radio Dublin. An Irish Independent report into the court case felt it important to note that “During the entire two hour case Mr. Cooke was accompanied by Radio Dublin disc jokey, blonde Sylvia McKenna, dressed in tight grey jeans and a sweater”. Good journalism that.
Radio Dublin was a particular threat to the establishment. Ballyfermot local paper Roundabout reported that the station had organised a march through Dublin city centre where a petition of 10,000 signatures as well as an application for a radio licence were handed into the Dail.
“The Radio Dublin team numbers ten. They can run a steady serious of programmes right through the week”
While the stories around the likes of Radio Nova are well-known, it is too frequently forgotten that pirate radio held an appeal even in some of the most working class corners of the city. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the media was awash with tales of young people taking to the airwaves, Garda raids on homes for transmitters and even the occasional political station being shut down. Pirate stations were frequently berated by the establishment for paying no heed to the Section 31 Act for example, designed to keep Irish republicans off the airwaves.
It is a chapter of Dublin history, and not least the history of the youth of the city, that is frequently overlooked.
It’s hard to disagree with the Indo of December 30 1988, which remarked that
“Whatever you may think of the pirates, it does seem they have done us all a favour by blowing the cobwebs off RTE”.
Amen.
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Got anything you want us to stick up? Snaps, ads, reports etc.? Drop me a mail! donal.ofalluin.2009@nuim.ie
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“Playing it just for you the way you like it….” An excellent YouTube video tribute to Radio Dublin from doylerjoe
Sunshine Radio piece on the Glasnevin Youth Club. This comes from Youtuber mighty890
Great piece! I’ve been looking for information on pirate radio activity in Ireland as part of a story on Saor Raidió Chonamara, forerunner to Raidió na Gaeltachta – had no idea there was so much activity in Dublin in the 70’s and 80’s… Thanks for an intelligent and entertaining read. I’ll be following the blog from now on.
Good piece- hadn’t heard of that 1964 effort before although it was not the first non political pirate in the state by a long shot. The first also run by school boys from CBS ran out of Limerick City in the mid 1930s
piece on same from 1986 old limerick journal
Click to access first%20radio%20pirate.pdf
Great link. Cheers Shane.
Agree with you Shane, that quote comes from The Irish Times. Excellent to hear Limerick can claim the first, and that it was schoolboys once more!
A few other observations regards these eras. I would think that one should be careful about romanticising too much the pirates of the 80s, in particular the super pirates. Chris Cary, the Nova boss was involved in what I presume was one of the longest disputes the NUJ were ever involved in in this country as their members picketed his second station for months after been suddenly sacked. Sunshine were very much in bed with Haugheys Fianna Fail, even going to the extraordinary lengths before the 82 general election of taking a massive advert in the Sunday World urging all Sunshine listeners to vote Fianna Fail as they were the only party committed to independent local radio. How Ray Burke must have smiled.
Most of super pirates mimiked and copied the RTE/BBC newsfeed so there was little chance of them challenging Section 31. However some of the more maverick operators did. In Limerick, a guy called John the man who more or less ran a station called Radio Luimni invited Adams in for a long chat , which caused consternation at time. Ironically it was an ex pirate journalist Jenny McGeever who after landing an RTE job in late 80s ended up getting sacked for accidently contravening Section 31. She used work with sunshine. Full story on this here
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/44480
Sinn Fein did run stations around election time in border areas, but I don’t think they were political in the way we would expect now. I can’t find any reference to this online but i recall around the time of the hunger strikes, some h block supporters in Cork actually took over the local pirate- CCLR, at lunchtime and proceeded to broadcast a statement. I think there may have been balaclavas involved. Considering the studios of said station were very much in the City Centre, this showed a lot of daring.
However the real free radio nirvana that maybe lots of us hoped for really only came about when the cowboys were put of business or went legit in 88/89. I think the examples of Radio activ in dublin and equally K2 in Cork in the 90s were brilliant examples of how radio can be a really exciting and politically useful medium.
Finally, Peter Mulryan wrote a good book on this pirate era (mainly 70s/80s) called radio radio published by borderline in 1988. Unrelated to this topic but the same publishing house had previously published Life inside an English Jail by Raymond McLaughlin. Both were great books, I always wondered if they had published more. Maybe someone here might know of more publications by them
The story of pirate radio has never been written. Ireland is a story of firsts. The first pirate radio station in the world, the first pirate radio conviction under the 1926 Wireless Telegraphy Act in 1936, the first person in the world to die on hunger strike after being convicted of pirate broadcasting, the first pirate television channel in Ireland in 1948. The first country in the world where a pirate radio station topped the rating i.e Radio Nova in 1981. The first country in the world with a retro sense of humour. 1983 is now 2010 with the bandscan showing RDS for Nova, Sunshine, Heartbeat and Q102. In Ireland, north and south since 2RN went on the air in 1926, 1602 pirate radio stations have gone on the air delivering alternative broadcasting to a population of just under 4million. No country not even Italy can deliver a per capita statistic such as that.
Eddie B
Not forgetting that the rebels in the GPO in 1916 made the world’s first radio news broadcast.
Can you shed anymore light on the pirate TV station?
Thanks for the informative comment Eddie.
The pirate television station was located in a parochial house in County Cavan near the border. The station in 1916 was not located in the GPO but on the corner of Lower Abbey Street and was not the first to broadcast news that belongs to the Marconi station on top of the Eiffel Tower, it was though the first pirate radio station in the world breaking the tight British censorship controls.
Eddie is your book out?
I heard radio Jacqueline I think it was summer 68 i was on hols from UK and living in Dun Laoire.They played reach out by the 4 tops I recall.then they took the piss out of the Gardai,reading a garda statemment out in a ‘culchie’ accent.I suppose I could be mistaken and it was Xmas 67.anyone out there know? I was told they were up on killiney Hill!
Great comment. Thanks Dara. Hope someone is able to help you with your query.