That’s Pirate Radio Part 9 – Nova Northside

In the early 1980s, Nova Northside appeared briefly, offering special ad rates to local traders. Word quickly spread that it was actually the legendary Doctor Don Moore, re-broadcasting Nova on another frequency and replacing their ads with his own. As Nova itself was illegal, they could do nothing about it. >>>

Other Dublin Pirates

There were many other Dublin pirates during the late seventies and early eighties.

• Chris Barry started out on Capitol Radio.
  
• Colm Hayes started out on KELO in Swords.
• Radio City broadcast from somewhere near the quays.
  
• Treble TR played mostly country music and oldies.
  
• Radio Dublin started broadcasting on two channels.
  
• Southside Radio broadcast from Bray.
  
• East Coast Radio broadcast from Crumlin.

Festival Radio

From 1982 to 1985 I worked on a new station, providing very local radio for community festivals. We ran stations in Ringsend from a shop, Sandymount from various houses, Donnybrook from a garage almost in the shadow of the RTE mast, Wicklow Regatta from above a record shop, and Glasnevin North from my parent’s house, a community centre and a caravan.

The Community Broadcasting Cooperative was the brainchild of A.R.D. technical guru Dave Reddy, and DJs included ‘Big Al’ O’Rourke who travelled everywhere with a giant six-foot toothbrush, Charlie Sheehan, David Baker, Brian Lambert, Aidan Leonard, Gregg Merriman, Victor Ryan and Aidan Cooney.

We typically broadcast for a fortnight before a community week, then for the duration of the festival itself. It was the ultimate in local radio: we had no listeners outside the locality and, as Ger Roe commented on an earlier post, we were sometimes speaking into microphones taped onto brush handles, but within the local community, every radio set was tuned in to our station all day.

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