While much has been written of Ireland’s ‘Super Pirate’ radio stations like Radio Nova and Sunshine Radio, and some stations like Phantom have made the great leap to respectability, there is a whole hidden history to Irish pirate radio that has gone largely unexplored. The earliest pirate radio stations in Ireland were schoolboy efforts which the state wished to suppress quickly, and which in some ways were ahead of official broadcasting.
[Look Up] The Hidden Holocaust
In Look Up we like to encourage you rabble to briefly break from your daily scavenge for fag butts and lost change along the pathways of our durty oul town. Paul Reynolds asks you to make like a culchie and have a mouth at the second storeys of some of these buildings you pass every day.
Never Talk Cheap
For its February ‘Reality Bites’ series RTE showed a documentary on Ireland’s Rappers that hurled a version of Irish rap into the laps of the licence holders countrywide. Viewing figures for it were good but not as good as a rival station repeat show on gangland Ireland. RTE also focused on the so-called working class side of things. The resulting look at “a highly creative and dedicated subculture’’ was not welcomed outright either inside or outside the portrayed community. Paul Tarpey digs deep.
#folkMemory: People Stood Strong.
From pitched battles with Gardaí to partnership with Dublin City Council, Terry Fagan, of the North Inner City Folklore Project, discusses Dublin’s long history of housing struggle in with Peg Lesson.
{Interview} The Radiators From Space return to earth
Thirty-five years ago Dublin punk band The Radiators From Space song Television Screen, became the first punk single to make the charts anywhere in the world. With their fourth studio album due on April 30th, Sam McGrath recently caught up with the bands ever stylish, Dublin born Philip Chevron to talk about life, music and his days in The Pogues.
{Review} Gee Vaucher Is Lost For Words
Currently on show in the Droichead Arts Centre is an exhibition of original artworks by Gee Vaucher. Most well known for her covers and record sleeve designs for the band Crass and it’s associated label Crass Records. Thomas McCarthy legs it down memory road.
#rabbleEye: Heirlooms and Hand Me Downs.
From cold-calling on flats – literally ringing on bells and knocking on doors and calling people on the phone. Then I found a contact who could introduce me to others. This made the process a little easier. I will not pretend that I found it easy to meet people – many were not interested in engaging with me. Some refused outright, others seemed to consider it yet when I turned up at a prearranged time to record a conversation they would not turn up or they had a change of mind or just would not answer the door or got someone else to answer the door.
Memories of Lugs
Lugs’ is the Garda who has most left his mark on this city. He is historically associated with the states response to changing youth cultures of the city, and also with the emergence of the infamous Garda ‘Riot Squad’ to tackle gang violence.
3am Despair.
Right folks. Have you no homes to go to? Rashers Tierney looks at how the government’s babysitter attitude to boozing is the bane of underground club culture.
{Look Up} The Liberties’ Heads.
The Liberties’ Heads tell us more about our recent past than any trawl through the newspapers or Reeling in the Years. So claims Anarchaeologist.