The Real Story Chapter 8

Posted on March 30, 2015 by BigL

After that somewhat brief interlude, and while I do some further research, let’s get back to 1980. I think I could say this was a somewhat pivotal year for both Ireland as a whole and the broadcasting and sports section of the media. Football played a very important part of the year, for both Limerick and Big L Radio Limerick’s Sports Team, with reference to Limerick’s player manager Eoin Hand, fighting in a highly competitive campaign, culminating in a terrific match in Athlone, leading to a 3 year period during which Limerick qualified in European football, much to the delight of Limerick as a whole. However the tone for the eighties was set by an extremely irresponsible budget by the Fianna Fáil Government in 1977 which included amongst other things the abolition of car road tax. Between the following Charles Haughey and Garret Fitzgerald Governments the situation was made much worse, by massive borrowing, and tax rates as high as 60%.

In January of 1980 The American Singing group the Supremes appeared at the Savoy

Savoy Bedford Row Limerick

to a crowd of less than 200, somewhat distressing for Brendan Murray the Promoter and main instigator for the Savoy’s revival during this period. For whatever reason, Brendan went to extraordinary lengths to ‘recoup’ his takings which led to an armed robbery of the group just short of Birdhill traveling back to Dublin. Extremely out of character, he nevertheless wound up doing time for this misdemeanor and returned later in the year to continue the on going success of the Savoy. On the 19^th April Johnny Logan wins the Eurovision song contest for the first of his two wins in this competition,(no one else has achieved that), with ‘What’s Another Year’ putting Ireland back on the European Map again since Dana’s ‘All Kinds of Everything back in the 70’s.The Limerick Lady Festival Final was held at the Savoy in May, covered in chapter seven in more detail.

The Music industry as a whole was coming on strong in this first year of the new decade despite England and Ireland being in severe financial trouble, maybe because of people’s spirits needing to be lifted, and the interest in the local Radio scene was sprouting ‘new’ radio stations all over Ireland especially in Dublin, at one time more than 30 stations all vying for listener ship against the new RTE radio 2.

At Big L Radio Limerick the Music coming on line was probably the best since the Rock & Roll era had begun. The Stardiscs Top Ten Show

on Friday Nights was going from strength to strength with continued support from the owner Pat McKenna who had been the first advertiser to come on board in 1978 and remained loyal to the station throughout it’s duration. Here are a couple of sound bites from the show in the ‘80’s

I was approached by the Canadian owners of the Courtyard (situated behind Cruises Hotel) if I was interested in taking on their Wednesday

Cruises Hotel Patrick Street Limerick

night spot. Initial response was negative, as I didn’t need any more commitments to my already stretched work load at the Radio Station.

I was doing the breakfast show 7-10 am

Lunchtime show from 1-2 pm featuring the Birthday person just after one o’clock news where we would play the no 1 record on a chosen listeners Birthday

Personal top 10 show 5- 6.45pm (listeners choice of Music with occasional live call to the lucky listener, the backlog grew to over 6 months waiting list) check out

www.omelettesbitsandbobs.blogspot.ie/2013/10/a-tribute-to-limericks-big-l-pirate.html

In Afghanistan: as the Soviet military occupation continues, US President Carter puts on the pressure. The Moscow Olympic Games are threatened…
…but the International Olympic Committee stands firm. The USA and several other Western nations boycott the Moscow Olympic Games. On Big L radio Limerick the sponsorship of the sports Show had passed from ‘Stix’ to Pat Grace, Owner of the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise for Ireland and also a very keen Soccer fan. From the Big L Radio Limerick sports team, Ronnie Long was handling the main reporting and commentary from the games, which led to the first and only confrontation between sponsor and owner in the Station’s history!

After returning from the outside broadcast of the weekly Saturday morning Novena from the Redemptorists Church, I checked in to the Saturday Morning Sports show and handed over to the sound engineer before adjourning to Quinns Pub

Quinns Lucky Lamp Ellen St Opposite Big L Radio Limerick

across the road at Ellen St to meet prospective guests for the show(usual practice for Saturday mornings),which on occasion evolved into a heavy drinking session mixed in with the odd coffee, I digress, on this occasion, barely 5 minutes into the ‘session’, Ronnie Long joined our group very distressed and nearly in tears, blurting out that he had been thrown off his show. Quinns radio did not always tune into Big l Radio Limerick, which left us unaware as to what had been going on in the Studio just across the Road!

With Ronnie in tow I headed back across Ellen St to the studio(in the basement underneath no 12 Ellen St). to find Pat Grace and another person discussing local football on air! I asked the engineer as to what was going on, to which he replied Mr Grace had come into the studio demanding that the Olympic report is of no relevance to ‘His’ Show, and was taking over the reporting with his own guest!

I immediately ‘killed’ the Live Microphone, stormed into studio 2 telling the engineer to put on some music, and demanded a reason from Pat as to why the show had been disrupted. Pat’s response was something very derogatory about Russian politics, to which I replied that his personal view had nothing to do with Big L’s sporting coverage. He maintained that as it was ‘his’ show he had a right to dictate the content.

At this point I reminded him that it was not ‘his’ show, and furthermore to remove himself and his guest from the premises. A lot more was said, but after an un-precedented 2 music track interlude on the mainly Chat orientated show, he eventually left never to return! Ronnie was duly re-installed and continued his coverage of the Moscow Olympics, however the show continued without a Sponsor, and the Saturday Sports show was now to be funded by me, which eventually led to the entire sports team jumping ship to Radio Luimni a year or so later, after I could not fund their demands for more money, rather disappointing as I had backed them to the hilt! We did try, Hayman organized a visit from Max Boyce the comedian/singer with a great welsh rugby content at the Savoy in November however with tickets at 4/5 punts we barely managed to pay his fee, great night though! Maybe playing on the 13^th was not a great idea.

In Dublin music fans were disappointed after the powers that be cancelled a boomtown rats concert because of fears over crowd safety. ‘Sir’ Bob rejected the Courts descision and a battle continued over the next two weeks after which the descision to go ahead with the concert at Leixlip castle was eventually granted. Fourteen thousand fans attended and as far as I can remember our own Punk authoritarian Eoin Deveraux was there on behalf of Big l Radio Limerick, but you may have to confirm that with him. I do remember a coveted ‘interview’ with ‘Sir’ Bob that Eoin played at some stage on his show.

A European Cup home match between Limerick and Real Madrid took place in Lansdowne Road on 17 September 1980. The decision was taken to play in Lansdowne rather then Limerick to avail of larger crowd capacity but financially it ended in disaster. It was a great game with difficulty in determining between the Limerick part-timers and the professional Spanish football team. Although Limerick lost they were the better team. It was unfortunate that Johnny Matthew’s goal was disallowed for offside and that Des Kennedy gave Limerick the deserved lead only for the referee to award a disputed penalty to the Spaniards. The final result was a win for Real Madrid 2-1. Two weeks later Limerick traveled to Spain to play in the Bernabeu Stadium in front of 60,000 fans. Real Madrid were comfortable 5-1 winners.

In this outro Eamonn O’connor saying Goodnight at the end of his show and the full close down at 2 am with me making a mistake at the very end announcing our VHF frequency as 94.1…ahh live broadcasting with all the hic-cups??

Noteable Hits of the year were as follows:-

Abba: I Have A Dream
Boomtown Rats: Someone’s Looking At You
Blondie: Atomic
Johnny Logan: What’s Another Year ?
Nolan Sisters: I’m In The Mood For Dancing
The Clash: London Calling
Split Enz: I Got You
U2- Stories For Boys
Brendan Shine: Catch Me If You Can
Queen: Another One Bites The Dust
Bagatelle: Summer In Dublin.
T.R. Dallas: Oh Lord It’s Hard To Be Humble
Queen: Flash
John Lennon: Imagine

A Round table clip from December 1980…….

Other ‘hits’ include Rupert Holmes and the Pina Colada Song, Celebration – Kool & the Gang and who could forget Jona Lewie – And You’ll Always Find Me in The Kitchen at Parties. On a sadder note The Buttevant Rail Disaster darkened our skies on the first of August. At 12:45 the 10:00am Dublin (Heuston) to Cork (Kent) express train entered Buttevant station carrying some 230 bank holiday passengers. “The train was diverted off the main line across a temporary set of points into a siding. The locomotive remained upright but carriages immediately behind the engine and generator van jack-knifed and were thrown across four sets of rail line. Two coaches and the dining car were totally demolished by the impact. It resulted in the deaths of 18 people and over 70 people being injured”. The enquiry afterwards deemed the coaches construction to be horribly out of date, and heralded a refit of the entire rolling stock.

On the 8^th December Taoiseach Charles Haughey met with the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at Dublin Castle. It was the first visit by a British prime minister since Irish Independence.

But 1980’s biggest TV question is: “Who Shot JR?”
(Answer: Kirsten, Sue-Ellen’s sister)

Poland: The workers unite against the Communist government. Lech Walesa leads the trade union ‘Solidarity’.

Former Beatle John Lennon is murdered in New York in December 1980, and the Christmas hit knocking John Lennon’s (Just like) starting over again, was St. Winifreds School Choir and their rendition of “There’s no one quite like Grandma” which stayed in the top spot for 2 weeks till John took the top spot again with “Imagine” on the 10^th January 1981.

The Real Story Chapter 6

Posted on August 7, 2014 by BigL

The Real Story Chapter Six August to December 1979

After being at the top of the charts for most of august the Boomtown rats 2^nd No 1 ‘I don’t Like Mondays’ eventually gives way to Cliff Richards ‘We don’t Talk Anymore’, Cliff’s 8^th Number 1, however a big star was flexing his prowess in the charts. Michael Jackson’s ‘Off the Wall’ album was released in August eventually selling 7 million copies in the US alone, getting us all ready for the BIG one ‘Thriller’.

Researching for this chapter has meant ‘digging’ into what few cassette tapes I have in my possession, and those kindly lent to me for copying and eventually putting up on the web site for you to hear. Photo’s too have come my way from Ian and Ken, who amongst others visited Ireland in the 80’s with loads of memorabilia from around the country’s local stations rather than the ‘Super’ Pirates, loads of stuff if your interested here:-Archive of Irish Pirates check out Waterford, Tralee and Cork stations on their site, fascinating reading! For myself the tapes I am using for research, number about 20 in all, 2 of them are advert cassettes from 1980 to 1981,Big L radio Limerick never used Carts for jingles or adverts. The 8 track ‘cart’ was standard broadcasting format for national stations both here and the UK, and for the Two Super pirates Nova and Sunshine who’s owners, Robbie and Chris Carey were well used to their convenience when working on Radio Caroline.

Cart systems were expensive, I did price them at the time, around £400-£1500 per player, plus the cost of the carts, I just though the money was better spent on records, good quality cassette players and the outside broadcast facilities. In 1979 the record library would have been about 4 to 5,000 singles with over 1,000 albums, eventually growing to 13,000 singles and 5,000 albums by 1985, bigger than most radio stations at the time! Even RTE. They (RTE) relied on their dj’s to bring in records for their shows! as for the cassette library, that went into at least a thousand by 1983, everything of note was recorded, including sports shows, ‘Taste of Irish’, Thursday night program and all of Jim Kemmy’s wonderful History shows with Jim Wallace, not forgetting Eamon O’Connor’s hilarious shows on Monday nights, and of course Tom O’Donnell’s Tuesday night slot. Even the ‘Mad Hatters Ball’ (Friday nights) had its own place in the archives.

I don’t like reminding myself of their, (the archive tapes), demise, but here goes for the last time. I went to England in 1983, hopefully to semi retire from Big L radio Limerick and join forces with Chris Barnbroke, the owner of Horizon Radio in South London. My then business partner Frank Cavanaugh, whom I had misguidedly given control of the advertising agency side of Big L Radio Limerick, was to run the station and send money to me in England by way of allowance/pension or whatever you want to call it. I took about 1,000 records and albums and headed off to London in the Fiat Z100 OBU, and the speakers from Poldarks and amplifiers etc. This adventure will unfold in the time line of this blog, but to cut a long story short for now, needless to say whilst I was in London for about 3 months I never received any money from Ellen St Agency, The Money end of Big L radio Limerick!

Margaret phoned me some time during my ‘escape’ to London to say that the Station was in a mess, Cavanaugh had not maintained any of the Transmitters in the county(FM), and the station was being demoralized by his attitude. His Co-hort in this debacle was the other advertising ‘manager’ a guy named John Davis, who had previously ‘worked’ for Jimmy Saville, too sordid to mention at this stage but suffice to say He knew what was going on even then back in the 80’s!

I returned to Limerick to an absolute mess. I called a meeting of all the staff at the time paid and unpaid some 50 or so crammed into the office above 13 Ellen st. I informed everyone I was back to stay, and had every intention of putting Big L radio Limerick, back on it’s feet again. After the meeting Davis and Cavanaugh, pleaded to stay on, big mistake, but I had enough engineering problems to worry about, to get involved in financing the station so let them stay on!!! Downstairs in studio one 2 of the 4 tape decks were unworkable, but in studio 2 I couldn’t believe what was waiting for me. Everything looked ok at first sight, records a bit awry but I could see there were still about 10,000 in the collection in the wall units. The tape archive looked all ok all the front row neatly lined up so they could be identified. The archive was arranged across the rearwall cabinet containing the albums seen here in this shot from ’83.

The rear Wall of Studio 2 with an even longer Walnut/Glass cabinet (12 feet) behind the camera man.

Each of the 28 cubicles contained 12 cassettes wide by 3 deep to the back of the Walnut and glass cabinets, purchased from a closing Pharmacy in Bury St. Edmunds England. More than a thousand in all, on closer inspection the two rear rows were Missing, gone, I couldn’t believe it, on top of that all the front row cassettes had been emptied, just empty box’s!!!! I was so furious I just sat there in disbelief. As the meeting had been over for more than an hour I wasn’t going to call them all back to point the finger, but heads would roll on this one. I busied myself out in the County repairing the Transmitters and did not spend too much time back in the station. Fleeting visits at odd hours produced my first culprit. Mike Byrnes no relation to Liam Byrne who has a limerick radio nostalgia site on the net, was doing his show some 2 evening’s later, and was recording his ‘show’ apparently common practice while I was away, however the tape he was using was an archive tape of Jim Kemmy show, he was immediately ejected from the studio, claiming he wasn’t the only one, he was lucky to have left with two working legs. I am actually getting angry writing this and I didn’t want to allow this blog to get into the down side of the era, but it is part of the history. Once the word had got out a number of dj’s never showed up for their shows. What a mess. I’m going to take a break from writing for now 13.18 Wednesday the 30^th July 2014, I’ll be back

resumed………Thought that would calm the waters not really, still very angry!

Back to 1979

So as not to confuse the issue over the ‘missing’ tapes there were 2 Mike Byrne(s) for a while. The (not really) Unfriendly Mike Byrne had started doing sound engineering on shows like the Saturday Sports Show, Women’s Show (Big W), even the odd stint on Tom O’Donnell’s show when Philip wasn’t available – now that was an experience for any up and coming sound engineer. Tom would have you exhausted by the end of his show, personally drove me around the bend on more than one occasion, he also engineered a Monday evening sports show with Flash Gleeson for a while as well. Much later the other Mike Byrnes arrived calling himself the Friendly DJ which prompted John Ryan and Philip to come with the differentiating Name…to identify the two Byrne(s’)

Early in August due to the increasing frequency of my visit’s to Arena in Askeaton, my Father Jack Sherriff Richardson tried one more attempt to get me to ‘return’ to the fold, but I just couldn’t see myself back in Askeaton! He even offered to buy Dromore Castle in Kildimo for me. This had been one of my ‘pet’ projects in Ireland ever since my first visit back in 1967. The plan had been to turn it into a Hotel and Dance venue, seemed then that the Show Band era would go on forever but the arrival of Disco was killing that off by the late 70’s. First it would have to have been re-roofed, top floor of the main keep would have been executive private suits, next floor down split between casino and 5 star restaurant, next floor standard accommodation with associated restaurant, ground floor and basement kitchen area and Public bars leading out to the courtyard and covered Dance floor area open to the sky except in inclement weather when a sliding roof like no 1 court in Wimbledon would have been utilized. Grand design and wishful thinking on my part, but feasible at the time. The views from this castle over the 3 lakes in the estate are incredible to this day, sadly no longer accessible to the public, but certainly visited by many people when the main gates by the lodge were permanently open. Those of you who have seen High Spirits can get an idea of the Dromore estate although the interior film shots bear no resemblance to the actual layout of the castle then and now, I still like the movie despite Daryl Hannah being slated for her performance. At the time of my father’s offer I had not considered moving the Radio Station to Dromore, although in actual fact it would have been ideal, even though it was derelict then and still was whilst making the movie in 1988. Maybe the fees from the film producers would have covered some of the refurbishment, however I presume it wouldn’t have been for hire, had my plans come to fruition. A castle I was offered for the Radio (Croagh castle), by my Godmother Brett Shanahan of the Ramble Inn in Croagh did not have the height or proximity to Limerick as did Dromore, but that to never came to be either.

All these fantasy ideas came to a very abrupt ending after the incidents of the 27^th August 1979. My Father had run away from home in Goole Yorkshire when he was barely 15, and signed up to the eighth Army at that time stationed in Lybia.

8th Army Benghazi Motor Pool

He spent his time there 2 or 3 years before the start of WW2, right through to the invasion of Italy, and saw the army more as his family than the one he had left behind in Yorkshire, and when Lord Louis Mountbatten was assassinated on the waters around his home in Mullaghmore Co.Sligo, he must have just lost all semblance of what his life meant up to that time. I can only imagine what his feelings were at the time, I didn’t even know of his actions until I received a phone call from England from my Mother to say Dad had sold Arena for £37,500 to the Sheehan Brothers, and would never return to Ireland again! The Story was that he had looked for £50K but the brothers said they only had the sum stated, and my father took the cash on the spot. This was before Aughinish

Shannon Terminals

near Foynes had even been mooted for the proposed site to refine bauxite and alumina plant which went into production in 1983, improving the value of all properties in the area. Arena was sold by the Sheehan brothers for €15M around 2010-11, nice one!

Big L Radio Limerick continued to grow through what was left of 1979, up to obvious excitement of the population over the arrival of Pope John Paul II, Gleesons were selling ‘Papal’ fold up chairs for the event at Greenpark, and I do remember on that day covering his arrival by Helicopter from the Nunciature at Maynooth College and celebrated mass before 400,000 people in Limerick. He then left Shannon Airport for Boston in the United States. I had been up most of the previous night presenting shows as well as the Breakfast show, up to his arrival in the Limerick region. Not till I heard the impending roar of the crowd (some 3 miles away did I go out into Ellen st when I heard his helicopter overhead. Limerick was totally deserted, I mean nothing was moving..anywhere. I went back to the studio and put on a music tape (auto-reverse) 2 hours, and got down underneath the record decks and went to sleep! Like me I don’t believe anyone was listening…..sssshhhhh.

I have very few tapes of specific shows not only for the events mentioned earlier but also later on 1n1985-6 of an entirely different set of circumstances which I will divulge later in the respective time line, but some’ gems like this one featuring E.O.C. Eugene O’Connor,

son of Eamon O’Connor, taking over the reigns from John Ryan,(still broadcasting on Clare FM, and sounding just like Big L Radio Limerick would today I might add, thanks for that John!), definitely one of the great talents on the Station.

Star discs ran by Pat McKenna in O’Connell St, right next to the sadly missed Cruises Hotel was the first main advertiser on Big L Radio Limerick. The Star discs Top Ten Show on Friday nights became the anchor point for the weeks evening shows and certainly had a wide audience. As most of the records were bought from him it was a mutually satisfactory engagement. Pat also sold the station most of the tapes required for archiving, some very high quality tapes for the ads (Memorex) were bought in the UK. Two sound clips from Stardoms Top Ten show

this one shortly after we got back on the air after our one and only ‘raid’. The voiceover is done live on the show, this was before we had any separate recording facilities for the advertising production, and the next one almost a year later done off air complete with cue for inserting into the show.

Towards the end of 1979 the Parkway Ballroom was used to host Big L radio Limerick events like the teenage disco on Sunday afternoons and some evening disco’s of which I have very little memory apart from one in particular at which Vincent Hanley from the new RTE 2 radio station was to make a guest appearance. The Parkway was pretty well packed but the stage was pretty poor when it came to supporting vinyl record players. Like most marquee dances in those days the stages were barely more than a couple of sheets of plywood in some cases chip board supported by a few beer barrels. In other words the DJ had to be very gentle on the boardwalk or else the records would go berserk and jump all over the place, embarrassing or what. Most of the audience new this and were encouraged to stay off the stage, or at least be very careful not to bang the stage. Some of course would take advantage of this dilemma and cause havoc, but generally most nights went OK. On this night the stage was very precarious and I was using my two top of the range Thorens TD126 decks (They cost me £420 each from Peter Dand in Dublin) bought for the Shannon Arms Disco back in 1974. Very good Transcription Decks but not suitable for Barn Dances and all the associated problems with wobbly and unsafe stages! The decks in Big L Radio Limerick used for broadcasting were standard Garrard sp25s, good work horse decks but bought for less than £30! Anyway enough of the techy stuff. The night was going OK then Vincent arrived with his tiny box of records (1 actually the 12” version of the Big disco hit of the moment ‘Viola Wills-Gonna get Along Without You Now’ and being the’ Star’ of the night leapt onto the stage and sent the current record being played by Philip Irwin into orbit! Slapping on his one and only record, before even acknowledging his audience he blurted out:-

“Well what do expect from a Pirate radio station but crap gear!”

I was on the floor whilst all this was going on at the time and on hearing his outburst which was directed directly at me, I just saw red and ‘rushed’ the stage ready to deck him. Lucky for him and I guess for me I was physically restrained by Michael Howes, Philip Irwin and possibly a few more, who had anticipated my reaction! I never spoke to Vincent at that time or any other time what a stupid man. To his credit he introduced MTV to Ireland, and died later of aids or something, I didn’t go to his funeral. Interestingly another ‘climber’ at the time was Buggles-Video killed the Radio Star’ what a prophetic record.

On December 3^rd eleven fans were killed during a crowd crush for unreserved seats before The Who rock concert at the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, Ohio. And two days later December 5^th Jack Lynch resigned as Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland; he is succeeded by Charles Haughey. The penultimate clip from 1979 is a snippet from the breakfast show on the 9^th November with Ingrid Kelly on News.

On December 6^thThe world premiere of Star Trek The Motion Picture is held at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. It was the Studios response to the enormous success of Star Wars and was to be the first of many Star Trek movies although at The time the actors thought there would be one only Movie of the TV show.

On December 25^th Vietnam invaded Cambodia to overthrow the Khmer Rouge regime which begins the Cambodian–Vietnamese War, and the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and Babrak Karmal replaces overthrown and executed President Hafizullah Amin, which begins the war. The Christmas No 1 is Pink Floyd and Another Brick in the wall, and we’ll end this particular year with the fact that it has been the worst year ever for industrial disputes in Ireland, costing the economy over 1,460,000 working days. The last radio clip is from the evening of the breakfast show above with E.O.C. handing over to me on the Stardiscs top Ten Show…………

+ Happy New Year …………………..1980 approaches ++

The Real Story Chapter 5

Posted on July 6, 2014 by BigL

Chapter 5 January 1979 to July 1979 Updated 27th July 2014

We knew it was coming, but what were going to be the consequences? RTE Radio 2 was going to launch this year, despite no regulation against the ‘Pirates’ being introduced. Would we be wiped out by Big Brother? I don’t think so. Even the two ‘boys’ from radio Caroline didn’t think so, and had there eye on the Irish Radio scene, and would eventually launch Sunshine Radio and later Radio Nova, and blow RTE radio 2 out of the water, sorry Dublin, never really to be able to compete with the Independants in Dublin ever again! More of that later. In January the Whiddy island disaster at Bantry Bay captured the news headlines, Fifty people were killed when an explosion destroyed the French oil tanker Betelgeuse and the decision was forced upon me to start a News service for Big L listeners.

So using the powerful Russian radiogram in Studio Sound, Philip Irwin and myself started ‘compiling’ news from around the world, from every news feed we could receive. Big L Radio Limerick’s first news broadcast was over 20 minutes long, we had enough to do nearly 45 minutes, but decided that at 20 minutes we had done more than enough to satisfy our critics, from no news to 20 minutes a bit O.T.T., but anyway it had begun, but the early start at 5.30 am to get ready for the first news at 7 am was heavy going. Eventually the news service settled down to the usual 3 minutes or so, when Ingrid Kelly came on board the news team and later Trish Long, which survived well into 1984. as far as I can remember, the Boomtown Rats were the first group to be played on Radio 2’s new pop station, later on in the year, but in January an event inspired Bob Geldoff to write their classic no 1 “I Don’t Like Mondays” taken from the words, by way of justification, of Brenda Ann Spencer, who killed 2 faculty members and wounding eight students at her school in San Diego.

Other news we carried in February was the downfall of the Sha of Persia and the return of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to Tehran after 15 years in exile, whilst in New York City Sid Vicious is found dead aged 21 of a heroin overdose the day after being released from a 55-day sentence at Rikers Island prison on bail. In March Scotland Voted narrowly for home rule, which was not implemented, looks like it might be this time around, and the John F. Kennedy Space centre received the first fully functional Space Shuttle

Space Shuttle Columbia

‘Columbia’ on March 25th.Space Shuttle Columbia launching And whilst Jim Kemmy minority vote brought down the Government here later in 1981, in Britain, Jim Callaghan’s minority Labour government loses a motion of confidence by 1 vote, forcing a general election which saw the election of a new Tory Government with the first ever female Prime Minister in Margaret Thatcher on May 4th. However the first of the IRA’s devastating Assassinations’ of the year happened on March 30 when Airey Neave, World War II veteran and Conservative Northern Ireland spokesman, was killed in the British House of Commons car park. On the same day Ireland ended Irish pound parity with sterling on joining the European Monetary System. The next evening on March31st Gali Atari and Milk and Honey won the Eurovision song Contest with Hallelujah.

The 2 Boys at Radio Oxford

Timmy Mallet & Martin Stanford At BBC Radio Oxford 1979 Approaching

Easter of 1979 saw the release of Monty Python’s the Life of Bryan. The Film was banned here in Ireland for eight years from it’s release on April 4th until 1987, and on Good Friday, with fuel becoming ever more scarce, Peter was finding it difficult to come up from Fermoy, even with help from my Father supplying fuel from Arena in Askeaton. So for something exciting to liven up the holiday weekend as well as fill in the impending gap in ‘on air’ presenters, I decided to go for the World’s non stop broadcasting record which at that time was held by Martin Stanford and Timmy Mallet of BBC Radio Oxford at 28hrs. Not knowing anything about their ‘record’ I decided that I would do as much of the normal programming as possible. Including the ‘Mad hatters Ball’. So I started on Friday 13th , (yes I know!), with the Stardisc’s Top Ten Show, with the intent of raising Money for the 40 Hour attempt, for charity similar to Radio Oxford. We phoned the Guinness book of records,(Postal Strike), and were informed that BBC radio Oxford were going to go again for a 40 hour session!

So to be sure of getting recognition 60 hours was set as the target. With 3minutes per hour break allowed which could be accumulated, meant that I could take a break of 30 minutes every 10 hours, or an hour every 20 hours broadcasting. As far as I can remember I went for 30 hours straight off, giving me my first break of an hour and a half at 11pm Saturday the 14th. When I came back at 30 minutes past midnight I presented a ‘Soul’ special featuring Atlantic records which ‘filled’ the airtime till around the breakfast show on Sunday 15th. It’s hard to describe my mental state at this point but it was starting to deteriorate exponentially! By Mid day on Sunday achieving the potential 40 hour stage (the target attempt by the then record holders, BBC radio Oxford), I was pretty well much exhausted, and considered taking 30 minutes break, (the in studio photo of Margaret myself and Hyman), was taken around this time,would explain why I look so shattered!

If I did take the break, I can’t remember but assuming I did I would have reached the 50 hour stage at 1 am Monday morning, time for my next 30 minutes ‘rest’. I wouldn’t call it sleeping at this stage I was so shattered after being woken up, the break hardly seemed worth while. Ann Sullivan the antique dealer appeared at some stage in the early hours, of Sunday with a salmon Platter and I think a glass of wine(not sure about that item) but it was all received very thankfully at that point. The shop at no 13 Ellen st had been kept open most of the time during the broadcast, to facilitate donations(about £600 at this point) and people asking for requests, and the occasional visitor to the studio Jim Kemmy for one as he was my moderator for the Guinness Book of records, and friends and well wishers. In the early hours of Monday, between the records I was definitely experiencing weird ‘visions’. One minute the back wall of studio 2 was 16 feet away, the next moment it was in my face, and then 50feet away, then people would appear and disappear as quickly as they had arrived, some through the wall! The Studio started to get very busy with visitors(real & imagined), and at 1 pm Tom O’Donnell appeared with the entire St. Mary’s Pipe band, all 40 of them, to end my ‘ordeal’. I was so exhausted at this stage I was not very receptive to all the commotion around me, I didn’t know which was the greater desire, to sleep or eat! Sleep prevailed, but I was up again around 7 pm and went to the Granary for a BIG T bone and chips courtesy of the then manager Pat ………….., I don’t remember much of the night after that, I do know that my attitude to broadcasting changed significantly afterwards. I remained presenting the breakfast show for the next few years, (nobody would get up at that hour), but I relinquished the lunchtime show and the evening personal top ten show, as more DJ’s came on board. I did manage to continue with the ‘Elvis Show’ on Sundays at 4pm, but sharing it eventually with Eric Mitchell.

Eric had come to the station by way of sending his personal Top Ten (mostly Elvis), which sat in the in tray for almost a month without any one else submitting their entry’s. Despite asking for more ‘personal top ten selections’ no other entry’s came into the request box so I decided to play Eric’s submission on a Friday night before the Stardiscs Top ten show, to give us the weekend to work out what to do with the ‘slot’ by Monday!

The Personal Top Ten show came from Capital Gold in London, where it had become very popular, but with no particular time slot, so I thought the idea would work well in Limerick despite not having every record made, even Capital got caught out with the odd stinker that they either didn’t have in the Library or wouldn’t play for whatever reason! As we announced the show Eric rang up proclaiming his delight at being the first ‘PTT’(Personal Top Ten), to be aired. Despite the apprehension over the follow up we received two more PTT’s, on Saturday, one in the shop in Ellen St, the other in the competition entry ‘box’ at Stardiscs in Patrick street. After these two PTT’s were played the following week, the entries came thick and fast, eventually building up to a 2 month waiting list!

After the 60 hour broadcast we attempted to verify the occasion with the Guinness book of records, which they wanted by mail. Unfortunately the postal strike was in force and despite a vigorous protest by Jim Kemmy over the phone, our attempt was deemed unofficially ok, but no recognition from the UK! It didn’t really matter anyway BBC radio went on to break theirs and Big L Radio Limerick’s attempt within the month, however as you may have noticed from earlier in this epistle there were two of them and because of needle time restrictions, most of their show was by way of phone in’s and chat shows, not quite the same!

Anyway by the end of May more important agenda was on the horizon notably the launch of RTE’s pop station Radio 2 (lot of imagination there!) on 31st of May, first request was from shall we say a mature lady from the north looking for a mention for her family to which Larry Cogan allocated the Boomtown rats, not very appropriate at the time, but then that was RTE nothing changed there then! Listening to the new station from RTE, we began to think that we had nothing to worry about too much. Unlike the UK in the 60’s the Labour government had got rid of the Pirate Broadcasters first and employed nearly all the off shore DJ’s en masse for the new Radio One. The one main exception being Jimmy Young who took on the après breakfast show slot,

T W

pioneered by Tony Windsor on Big L Radio London, virtually identical in format. Tony Windsor never made it to the main stream broadcasting platform in the UK, big shame. Summer approached and Big L radio Limerick settled down to a format dictated by listenership and a growing list of DJ’s willing and eager to ‘learn’ the ropes, not available from National Broadcasting Facilities.

The Real Story Chapter 4

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Updated 20^th May 2014

With the sports team up and running on Saturday mornings, and DJ’s coming to the door looking for a chance on the airwaves, I created a ‘First Chance’ spot for them immediately after the Stardisc’s Top Ten Show and before the Mad Hatters Ball, so I could keep an ‘eye’ on these first timers. Some of them never made it to the air time on a permanent basis, mainly because of space and time available, but also because of their respective talent’s. Some of the participants were naturals like Declan Copues, and Philip Irwin. Others had enormous talent like the Finn brothers and Eugene O’Connor, but at least I tried to give everyone a chance, and I like to think that a few of those potential presenters passing through the doors of Big L Radio Limerick, are still working in the media. They certainly wouldn’t have been able to get on the ladder by any other means! John Ryan came to us as a very shy boy from the sticks (Murroe I think), and is still broadcasting today on Clare Fm, as is Francis Jones who is still with Radio Kerry. I actually rejected Francis after his ‘audition’, but after a couple of very pleading letters and I think a little pushing from Tom O’Donnell, I relented and allowed him on air, we can all make miss-judgments I guess, more on Francis later. I was still playing music at ‘Clouds’ on the third floor of the Savoy in Bedford row Limerick on Saturday nights, through into August. On the 6^th Pope Paul VI died which were going to have far reaching effects for both Ireland and Limerick over the coming months, and the second event was the 1^st Anniversary of Elvis’ departure from this planet on the 16^th.

I was resident in Poldarks at the 2 Mile Inn when the untimely news came to all his fans, of which I confess to not remembering too much, this time I can remember a lot more around the night. Even though Big L Radio Limerick was beginning to consume more and more of my time, I had time to prepare what I thought would be a good night and go on to run another 7 Elvis Conventions up to the last one on January 8^th 1985, the last at the Granary on an atrocious night,

the roads were freezing bad but the fans still came from all over the County. As it was a Wednesday I wasn’t sure how well it was going to be attended, and I hardly had time to set up the disco myself I left it in the capable hands of my roadies. Working at Ellen St till late and just about making time to grab a bite to eat, I made it to Bedford row, just about 9 pm expecting to have the place to myself,(as usual), to do the warm up, for me anyway. The usual crowd, (around 30-70), on a Wednesday night didn’t arrive till after the pubs closed around 11-11.30, and as I had only just started the ‘Elvis Show’ on Sundays a couple of weeks beforehand, I wasn’t expecting the sight as I walked through the venue’s doors on the second floor, (it alternated between 3^rd and 2^nd floors depending what had been booked by the Savoy management). The equipment had been set up ok but was silent, unlike the ‘buzz’ in the room from at least 300 fans chatting away amongst themselves. I asked my crew why they hadn’t put any music on and they just said “Dunno we thought we’d wait for you”. I walked across the floor and the crowd fell silent not knowing what to expect. I didn’t recognize any faces from either Poldarks, the Shannon Arms ,or even the Franciscans, now a good 5 years older than I would have recognized them anyway! I stepped up onto the makeshift stage grabbed the Mike and and said “ we all know what we’re hear for………Let’s Dance”, and so we did and rocked and rolled for the rest of the night to my first disco ever dedicated to one artist “The King of Rock & Roll” , that was some night, I don’t think I’ll forget that one. Later on in August(28^th), the actor Robert Shaw died near his home in Ireland of a heart attack, so many people famous and otherwise have passed on by these events that I know so well. Check out a Cautionary Tale on this site. All these people were just in the wrong place and the wrong time, including my Grandfather, who also died before he was 60, I was lucky to have my doctor so close at hand, she (Dr. Blanead MacCurtain), was with me within 5 minutes of getting home after enduring my ‘attack’ on the way back from a school run in 2013.

Robert Shaw in Jaws

Robert Shaw was the Skipper of the boat that went after the Great White in Jaws, he also appeared in a Bond movie, great actor should have stayed with us, he had plenty more films to do. Kieth Moon, the lunatic drummer with the ‘Who’ passed away at a very early age, born the same month and year as myself, great pity, I don’t think the group were ever the same afterwards. And again another Pope dies, this time Pope John Paul I on September 28^th,

in what may have been suspicious circumstances! I like Dan Browns evaluation!

Pope John Paul I

I have mentioned the Popes during this year not only because of the impending ‘3 popes in one year’ scenario, but also of the link with Big L Radio Limerick. What Link? I can hear you all asking. Simples. In the early days when we used to switch off the MW transmitter at closedown, up would pop a station on the original frequency we used namely 194 Metres or to be more technical 1548 Klcs. Namely Vatican radio broadcasting from Rome.

Vatican Radio Masts… very powerful! 95 mtrs high erp in excess of 100,000watts

Most radios then (small domestic ones anyway), couldn’t receive this transmission, but as we were used to scouring the airwaves for any ‘interference’ around this time, our big Russian radiogram in the shop at 13 Ellen St, was more than able to receive this ‘Holy’ channel.

The Russian Radiogram In Ellen St with My eldest Son Alex 1982

Sorry to have to admit we were blocking out ‘his holiness’ words from Limerick during this time. In the beginning I did move the frequency on a regular basis to try and get away from this ‘interference’ , to no avail, but on occasions I did move away from the Vatican Radio Frequency we did get the occasional reception report from as far away as Scotland, once even from a Monk in the North of Sweden, with a huge piece of ‘kit’ no doubt to pick up his Holiness, sorry about that! I hope we made up for that with broadcasting the Novena from the Redemptorists Church every Saturday before the Sports Show through the guidance and permission of Father Kavanagh, no relation. I can however lay claim to another inspirational Priest in the ‘family’ namely Monsignor Edward Kavanagh of St. Rose Parish in Sacramento. CA. Uncle Bernie’s Brother, who was a brilliant fund raiser, should have had is advice for collecting advertising monies, he even helped to set up the church’s own radio station KSMH 1620 AM, a kindred spirit! As The year moved on more experienced people wanted to become involved with the Station, including Eamonn O’Connor (Eugene’s father), who had a very successful Monday Night show with some very interesting guests from his years in showbusiness, and an even more interesting playlist. His show eventually spawned Tom O’Donnell’s show on a Tuesday night, similar but not quite,Big L was beginning to shape up into a good all round community Radio Station. Despite a new television Channel (Network 2) coming on line on November 2^nd, Big L’s Listenership was apparently growing quite substantially, judging by the number of advertisers wishing to take out airtime, this outake from Eamon’s show with ‘Mary Manertney’ ?

and our increasing number of ‘Live’ calls to the stations relative show’s, staged or otherwise. Remember Ireland was in a severe depression at the time, with England falling headlong into the same situation.

BigL Radio Limerick.

Pirate Radio in Ireland

Tag Archives: Big l Radio Limerick

The Real Story Chapter 8

The Real Story Chapter 6

The Real Story Chapter 5

The Real Story Chapter 4

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