For about a decade unlicensed broadcasters disrupted Ireland’s media industry, by flooding the airwaves with local programmes.
They forced newspapers in Derry, Donegal and Tyrone to adapt to competition for advertising, became a new platform to air local issues on current affairs and united communities throughout the region as they gained huge audiences. Pirate radio stations became so popular that they became major challengers to RTE and the BBC.
Over three episodes the documentary features exclusive interviews with business people who invested in pirate radio and historians who analyse the impact of unlicensed broadcasters across Ireland in the 1980s.
Daniel O’Donnell admits he owes his successful music career to pirate radio and Michael Bradley, a guitarist with the Undertones reveals he was a pirate radio disc jockey in Donegal.
The famous British disc jockey Tony Blackburn recalls his career with pirate stations Radio Caroline and Radio London, broadcasting from ships in international waters. The offshore broadcasters in the 1960s influenced pirate broadcasters in Ireland in the 1980s, which laid the foundations for today’s network of local radio stations.
The documentary is produced and presented by Russell Padmore, a former Programme Presenter and News Reporter with the BBC.
During the 1980s he was a pirate radio disc jockey in Waterford and Mullingar, before becoming a familiar voice on the airwaves of Donegal, where he also managed a station in Buncrana and set up his own one in Donegal Town.
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