THE GER ROE SECTION: Intro - Radio Dublin Channel 2 - Radio Annabel - Shamrock Radio

The Pirates Promotion Programme

Initially, Channel 2 was an FM only opt-out service from the main station output on 253m. As such, it was technically Dublin’s first FM only station and the first Dublin based FM stereo station (as far as I remember, Carousel Dundalk may have been the first Irish pirate to broadcast in stereo)..

Although the signal was never great (it suffered from low output power and audio ‘bleedthrough’ from the higher power MW and SW transmitters at

In 1982, following another inevitable staff split (to form ABC Radio), Channel 2 was looking for more specialised programming presenters and I decided to apply. By now the FRC programmes on SSR and Big D had concluded. Since I now had a large and still growing collection of cassette recordings of radio stations, and various diary books of radio notes, I decided to pitch ‘The Pirates Promotions Programme’ to station manager Mike Barron. I put a basic demo tape together using the GEC music centre and its microphones where I introduced some radio recordings, including my trump card – the RNI mayday broadcast. Mike was impressed with my enthusiasm, if not my presentation ability, and he wrote back to ask me to call in to Radio Dublin for a chat.

I joined Channel 2 shortly after meeting up with Mike at 58 Inchicore Road and I started presenting music programmes for a few weeks, while getting used to the very limited equipment and gaining confidence. I later launched ‘The Pirate Promotions Programme’ for an hour on Wednesday nights from 8pm. I had decided against any FRC reference, since I felt I had no right to use the name that Kieran Murray had established in earlier times. Then one night, a phone call came in from Kieran – he congratulated me on the programme and asked why I had not used the FRC title. When I gave my explanation, he gave his permission for the name to be used if I wanted to do so, and so the following week, the FRC title was used on air again.

The Channel 2 FRC programme continued despite some technical difficulties where the FM signal regularly became unlistenable due to the extent of audio interference from the other transmitters on site. At one stage I left the station (very briefly) due to the fact that there were times when I could not listen to it at home in Dundrum and this prompted Eamon Cooke to offer me a spot on the main 253 service. I declined the offer since I genuinely believed in the concept of an alternative service and so a new AM outlet was added on 240m for Channel 2 to improve the coverage area (later moved to 244m when RTÉ Radio 2 added a local Dublin service on 240m). The programme was off air for about two weeks, while I maintained my protest, until the new AM service was introduced.

In May 1983 the programme switched for one week to Radio Dublin 253m during the raids on Nova and Sunshine. Immediately following the raid on Sunshine, the Radio Dublin site at Inchicore Road was fortified and on the night that the programme was due to go out, we were mixing cement to seal the cabinet of the 10KW 253m transmitter into the ground and hammering doors closed to barricade the room. Access to the main transmitter was then only possible ‘Narnia like’ through a wardrobe placed against a wall in an adjacent room – the wardrobe had the back removed and a hole was cut in the wall allowing crawl space through to the main transmitter. Channel 2 was taken off air and its AM and FM transmitters were moved off site to be held as backup for the 253m service, in case of a raid.

There was no indication at the time as to when Channel 2 might return and I didn’t expect to be presenting a programme by the following week. On the next Monday I received an unexpected call from Mike Barron to say that Eamon Cooke wanted the programme to go out on 253m in the usual 8pm slot that following Wednesday. I duly turned up on the night, only to be approached by an annoyed Gerry ‘Dusty’ Jones. This was his very popular weeknight slot (Dusty’s Trail) and he had not been told that I was taking an hour off him. He asked me if the change was to be a regular thing, and I told him that I honestly knew nothing about it, other than it was happening that night. He went downstairs to confront Cooke and came back to let me know in no uncertain terms, that it was not to be a schedule change and that Channel 2 would be back on air by the following week. As mentioned previously, I had already declined an offer to move the programme to 253m and the handling of this situation had convinced me that I made the right decision.

The programme then continued until early 1984 when I finally left Channel 2 due to being totally frustrated with the lack of technical and programming development at the station. Mike Barron and his assistant station manager, Paul Haig, did their best to create a team based station approach but they were working with no practical or financial support from Eamon Cooke. There were times when I turned up at the studio to find that the cassette player was broken (essential for the FRC programme) and I would have to drive out to Ballyfermot to borrow a suitable deck from DJ Mike Davis who lived nearby. The quality of the FM signal had also deteriorated badly, right at the point where Nova and Sunshine had spearheaded the unprecedented move from AM to FM listening and this was the time where a developing FM service should have been primed to attract new listeners tuning across the far less congested band. At one stage I turned up in studio having again not been able to receive the signal at home, I pushed the opt-out button to split off the FM service and I announced the start of evening programming from Channel 2. I was an hour into music programming when Cooke told me that the transmitter was off air for repair. Ever more frequent arguments with Eamon Cooke about the lack of resources available for what should have been a showcase service station, left me in no doubt that the end of my time at Channel 2 had come.

Images on this page with thanks to Ger. Recording is from The Anoraks Ireland Collection

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