New play takes trip down memory lane to the days of pirate radio in Carrick-on-Suir

The cast of Radio Rock pictured with presenters of the former Radio Carrick station on the stage of Brewery Lane Theatre after the premiere performance of the play on Saturday, May 10. Writer Mary McGrath is pictured far left in the second row standing with producer Linda Fahy behind her. Radio Carrick founder Gerry Gannon is seated front row centre at the table. Picture Martin O’Brien. 

The premiere of  writer Mary McGrath’s new play – Radio Rock – was a nostalgic trip down memory lane for the group of people who worked as presenters on the real life pirate radio station in Carrick-on-Suir that inspired the drama.

Many of the presenters who broadcast shows on the former Radio Carrick station that operated from a house garage in Carrick-on-Suir’s Dunbane estate between August 1980 and October 1981 were in the audience at Brewery Lane Theatre on the opening night to witness themselves portrayed on stage by the cast.

Radio Rock premiered at Brewery Lane on Saturday and Sunday, May 10 and 11. The theatre was packed for all three performances that formed part of the town’s Bealtaine Festival celebrations.

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Nicholas de Paor and Peg Power were among the original Radio Carrick presenters who attended the opening night production.
Peg recalled she presented a morning request and chat show on the station from 10am to 11am and she continued the show for a few years when the station amalgamated with Clonmel Local Radio to become CBC Radio.

“I loved it and I used to read an episode from a book every day that was very popular. I remember hearing about people coming home from shopping in time to listen to it,” recalled the renowned Carrick actress.

Nicholas de Paor presented a Sunday morning classical music programme on Radio Carrick. He said he always tried to play light classical music on the show such as Strauss and popular opera greats like Pavarotti and Maria Callas to attract listeners.

Gerry Gannon, the station’s founder, is his brother-in-law and lived across the road from him.

“I enjoyed it no end. Whenever Gerry was stuck to play records he would say ‘go and see if Nicholas is a home’.

“It was great fun. We were aware that we were doing something that was slightly illegal but at the same time the radio station was a voice for Carrick-on-Suir.”

He was delighted with Radio Rock’s portrayal of those days. “I thought it was fabulous. I thought it was very well done and very well produced. It was realistic of Carrick at that time and very positive.”

Radio Rock is the third play Mary McGrath has written about the social history of her hometown.

She confessed she was very nervous about performing the play because the characters are based on the real broadcasters of Radio Carrick, many of whom were present at the opening night.

“You are hoping that you have done it justice. The scenes are fictional, all from my head, but we used the real people’s names. To hear back from them that it brought back all the memories they had of the station was fantastic. It has been a brilliant night. It’s so lovely to honour people when they are here.”

Mary put in a huge amount of research into Radio Carrick and life in the 1980s in preparation for writing Radio Rock. She and producer Linda Fahy interviewed former presenters and founder Gerry Gannon.

“It took about 10 months of work between interviews, research and writing the play. I wanted it to be historically correct and of its time. The people we interviewed were so generous with their memories,” she said. 

A big challenge for Mary was to weave those memories into the play. One of the devices she used in the play to give a sense of life in the 1980s was to use the radio station’s news readers to relay some of the news stories from those days.

“I hope people got a real feel of what the 1980s was like.”

She is full of admiration for the ingenuity of the people who set up and ran Radio Carrick during a bleak time of recession in Ireland.

“People were so innovative and progressive. They didn’t have the technology of today but they still got it done. We have so much available to us now, we sometimes forget about the time before there were mobile phones and the Internet.”

Michael Raggett and Sheenagh Raggett performing on stage in Radio Rock at Brewery Lane Theatre

Pat Quinn-Bolger portrayed Radio Carrick presenter Mary O’Hanlon in Radio Rock and Mary was in the audience to see her performance.

Like playwright Mary McGrath, Pat found the experience of playing a real person present at the play a little strange. “You want to do the role well but Mary was happy. It’s an honour to play her. She is a legend.”

Pat was impressed by the energy of the people who ran Radio Carrick and she notes many of them were young married couples with babies. “They just had great energy and drive and they were doing something that was so important for the community,” she said.

Pat’s fellow cast members were Michael Raggett, Sheenagh Raggett, Aileen O’Keeffe, Jacquie Ahern, Dennis Barry, Enda O’Driscoll, Peter McGrath and Paula O’Dwyer.

Radio Carrick founder Gerry Gannon and his wife Maryann travelled from Perth in Australia for the premiere of Radio Rock. The couple emigrated to Australia in 1985 and Gerry became a well known radio broadcaster on ABC Radio.

Gerry loved the play and the opportunity to meet up with again with people he worked alongside on Radio Carrick.

“I was emotional, I was enthralled, I was hugely entertained. I recognised a lot of the references to dates, times and people. It was thoroughly enjoyable,” he told The Nationalist after the performance.

Gerry was keyboard player with the popular band Tweed in between running Radio Carrick. He was involved in Suirside Radio in Waterford for a while before deciding to set up the station in his garage. While people described stations like Radio Carrick as “pirates”, he always preferred the term “community”.

He strongly believes stations like Radio Carrick were a mirror reflecting what was happening in their local community. They provided an important service that wasn’t being met by the national broadcaster RTE.

“I always felt RTE was ignoring us. Whenever we approached them, they turned their arses to us and farted at us,” he jokes.
Maryann also worked on Radio Carrick and remembers it as an exciting and lovely part of their lives.

She recalls she was pregnant at the time and working full-time in between working on the station.
“There was always someone coming in or going out of the house. “You never know who you would meet you came home.”

While pirate radio stations were illegal, Maryann recalls the gardaí used to drop into Radio Carrick to highlight crimes on the station.

During the election campaign that year, TDs and, even a Minister called to their house to be interviewed by Gerry for his current affairs programme.

The experience, no doubt, stood to him in his future broadcasting career Down Under where he interviewed some of Australia’s most senior politicians including prime ministers.

The couple still have a home in Ireland where they stay on their annual visits to catch up with family and friends.

Radio Rock producer Linda Fahy said she hoped Radio Carrick’s presenters enjoyed the play and seeing their memories come to life on stage.

She paid tribute to Mary McGrath for “writing an amazing piece of drama” and pointed out that old copies of the former Carrick Opinion newspaper, collected by Elaine Carroll, played an important role in their research into local news stories in Carrick-on-Suir in 1980/81 when the radio station operated.

An exhibition of copies of the Carrick Opinion newspaper from that period was displayed in Brewery Lane Theatre’s art gallery during the production of Radio Rock.

Programme presenters on the former Radio Carrick station gathered on the stage of Brewery Lane Theatre after the premiere of Radio Rock.