AUDIO FILES

Remember you can download some or all of the related audio files, and bring the pirate stations back to life!!

The audio here on the download area is as always "pretty variable".

In the days of touring around Ireland, many of the recordings were made on the move, and thus are subject to fades and noise. Some may be made close by the station, and suffer from overload on the radio due to a strong signal.

Many radios and cassette recorders just simply were not up to hi fi spec, but if it is all you have at the time as an enthusiast, a muffled, or tinny sounding recording is far superior to no recordings at all.

The variable quality of recorders back in those days was something that would not be understood perhaps by todays public. But let's also ask, who has the ability to record at all from the radio these days??? There were some receivers / radio sets that produced lovely pro sounding audio, and some that produced nothing short of rubbish. I have had all sorts in the past, and we would always try over the years to better our own equipment.

Many of the files listed have come from other enthusiasts, and thus we had no control over the bit rates used.

If only we could travel back in time with todays wideband SDR recorders, and record a chunk of the complete MW band from those wonderfully exciting years when the MW broadcast band was the place to be heard on.

Contributions From:

On these memories of pirate radio in Cork, you can hear some of the early pirates of Cork from 1978, courtesy of Patrick Healy in Cork.

In 1979 DS, Dave Small visited Cork and recorded some of the early pirates.

There are some longer recordings from reels, and some from cassette from SW, Steve West from his various tours, as well as KB and GH, Ken and Gary's recording.

IB has also supplied a number of recordings from various sources, which are uploaded as of early 2017. A most welcome update. Many are from the archives of Anoraks Ireland, of which some were the original tapes, bought from Paul Davidson when he folded up Anoraks Ireland.

Some of the recordings from 1980 and 1981 were made by Kevin in Cork and are a little bit hissy, but the cassette deck was peaked to it's best possible position for the tape heads.

What we have here is the best we can get from tapes that are 35 years old.

Click on the year to go directly to the year of interest.

1978 - 1979 - 1980 - 1981 - 1982 - 1983 - 1984 - 1985 - 1986 - 1987 - 1988