RADIO LUIMNI or to spell it correctly Raidio Luimni was run by a colourful gentleman, the late JOHN "THE MAN" FRAWLEY. Former showband man, John had apparantly been with Radio Limerick Weekly Echo, before moving on to start his own station, Radio Limerick / Raidio Luimni. John was known for his long sermon style shows, and reading the death notices for the area. Look at the few recordings we have and take yourself back to 1981, and imagine four young guys on holiday touring the Irish pirates and coming across Johns amazing breakfast show!!

We could certainly be described as naive youngsters who were a bit concerned in some ways of how Ireland was portrayed in the media in the UK in those days. Radio Luimni had a reputation of being for want of a better description, a strong Irish nationalist station. Today I say so what. But as young lads, scared that we might upset anyone by being foreigners, we gave Radio Luimni a miss. (In much the same way we had been very wary that first trip of heading up to the border areas like Dundalk and seeing stations like Radio Carousel and Telstar)

Sadly how absolutely naive and silly that line of thinking was. We missed out what could have been another interesting part of our journey along the trail of Irish Pirate Radio, and for this error of our ways we can hardly now turn back the hands of time.

The writer was only in Limerick one more time during the pirate heyday, this time in 1986 (still very much a youngster). This time on ringing up the station about a visit, we were asked to return the next day or something, as the station was presenting live coverage of a bicycle race through the city, and everyone was tied up at that time. But unfortunately we had to drive on.

By 1985, Radio Luimni had bought one of the Irish made MW transmitters. It is uncertain if this was a 2 by 2 or a 4 by 4 transmitter. 4 valves, 813's in the RF stage, and 4 in the modulator for example. The frequency of 1125 was chosen for this new transmitter, which was heard by mw dxers outside Ireland.

Also heard was a strong 2nd harmonic of the MW transmitter on 2250kHz. This used to send a percentage of the signal out quite a long way. Some of the recordings which include the station sign off at night could not have heard otherwise on the fundamental freq of 1125, due to interference.

Like some of the other far flung stations in Ireland, when Raidio Luimni was heard on your SW receiver, it was like listening to something quite exotic, and very different from the stereotype pirates of the day playing seemingly either top 40 or country and Irish.

To hear them sign off at night on the shipping band on 2250kHz with the haunting tune "Limerick Your A Lady" was just something else.

RADIO LUIMNI's John the Man, a poor quality reproduction of a small thumbnail taken from the 1991 calendar produced by Anoraks Ireland.

(I feel sure I have seen better full colour images somewhere of John and Radio Luimni, or was I possibly emailed these at one point, or maybe I even had a decent quality press cutting??)

RAIDIO LUIMNI early advertising rates and sched from their 980kHz days, although noted mid channel around 985 22/14/84 in Scotland. Heard in Scotland around 1393kHz on 4/10/81

Notice in their sched that they don't seem to sign off at the same time every night. And NO SUNDAY ADS!! I wonder if this changed in later years?? Look at the name for the Wed night show.

Put down your tablets, pick up your pen, with John The Man..lol

RAIDIO LUIMNI building taken by Steve West in 1987. Was this Number 1 Upper Gerald Griffin Street, in Limerick??

RAIDIO LUIMINI even gets a mention by none other than BILLY CONNOLLY on the Late Late Show on RTE listed as 1989. So this would have been past tense after the station had by then closed? Or is it maybe from 1988?? Tnx to "225" for pointing this youtube video out in 2014!!!

Click here to download / play a short movie clip around 10 meg in MP4 format.

VLC or many of the other popular players will easily play this file.

ireland_limerick_billy_connolly_1989_late_late_show.mp4