Wednesday October 17th, 2018
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Irish pirate radio archive donated to DCU Cáit Caden News Editor @AreYou_Caden_Me DCU received an extensive Irish Pirate Radio Archive including a transmitter that was camouflaged as a biscuit tin in the event a station was raided by post officials. This item, which originally belonged to novelist Pat McCabe, as well the rest of the Archive was donated by broadcast historian Eddie Bohan to DCU’s Media History Collection in DCU’s O’Reilly Library. “It’s very appropriate that the Archive is coming to DCU since so many pirate radio stations, and their DJs, originated in the North Dublin area,” said Professor of Journalism History in DCU, Mark O’Brien. DCU became the owner of the Collection in time for the 30th anniversary on New Year’s Eve of pirate stations shutting down due to the launch of independent and regional stations, which are broadcasting today. The Archive will consist of posters, flyers, magazines, photographs and audio recordings. The Collection is on view in the Library on DCU’s Glasnevin campus. It will soon be catalogued and made available to researchers. The long term goal for the Archive is to be used for a
digitisation project which will make the Collection available online. This project currently needs to find funding to be achieved. Ireland’s era of pirate radio was a catalyst for how broadcasting changed. It emerged when the airwaves were dominated by one radio station which did not represent the country’s young demographic or their ‘pop music’ tastes. “Pirate radio, for the most part, wasn’t political, but it allowed a younger generation to develop their own culture which fed into wider processes of slow social change,” said O’Brien. Both rural and urban Ireland were united by the broadcast revolution as “every town and village had a pirate radio station at some stage, even if they only lasted for a short time,” continued O’Brien. These stations were illegal but largely innocuous, however when pirate stations brought in advertising raids became frequent which resulted in transmitters and other equipment being seized. This exact equipment recently found its “forever home” in DCU according to O’Brien. “Radio Melinda was in Sean McDermott Street, where we got raided and fined two quid,” said radio broadcaster Declan Meehan to the Irish Times. “But we wanted to change the mo-
Credit: Daria Jonkisz
One of the pieces of the pirate radio archive which was donaed to DCU.
nopoly of Radio Éireann at the time,” he continued. Through a partnership between the School of Communications and the university library, DCU established a varied com&pilation of media artifacts over the past decade from over 40 donations of material. These include pieces of photojournalism and papers form editors and journalists. Consequently, DCU has become “a ‘go-to’ place for people who are look-
ing to give material relating to media and journalism,” says O’Brien who is “thrilled” that DCU was chosen to receive the archive. Broadcaster that have become household names in Irish media history, such as Gerry Ryan and Tony Fenton, pioneered their careers through pirate radio. Brian Dobson, Anne Cassin, Marty Whelan, Declan Meehan, Ian Dempsey and Colm Hayes are among others which contributed to this period
of Irish history. The historical paraphernalia was made available to the public on Friday the 5th of October. A further event will take place on October 20th in Ballsbridge Hotel where pirate radio station owners, DJs and people who raided the stations will have their stories recorded.
Those in relationships were then dared to make provocative calls to partners and family members, with some students having to break up with or say they cheated on said partners to stay in the running. The final three remaining couples each had to sing a different song. The couples stripped to varying degrees during these performances. One man fell off a table while stripping down to his underwear, and he later removed another student’s top. Kinsella said the voting process was based on who got the loudest cheers. He said: “it seemed to be less of a mathematical thing and more of a mania.” On the information page for the original EGM, A&F said students should bring their own drinks, and both committee members and ordinary members alike drank throughout the event.
In their second EGM, the head of A&F Oran O’Donoghue said that as the society had been suspended from all social events, their planned European mystery tour was cancelled for now. He added that this was not due to “the action of any one participant, but the distastefulness of the process,” and that the circumstances are under review. O’Donoghue, said he was disappointed that their actions lead to the loss of certain privileges, and explained how the situation escalated. “Partly it was due to the crowd that was there, and it was the situation that we put them into that allowed all that kind of reaction to occur,” the marketing innovation and technology student said. However, O’Donoghue also said that this kind of behaviour is quite com-
mon place both in DCU, and colleges in general. This sentiment was shared by another member of the society, who refused to give her name. “If you’re going to it to do it to one society, you should inspect what other societies did for their EGMs as well before making such a harsh punishment,” she said. Amy Colgan, chair of DCU’s Feminist Society, said that A&F’s actions cannot be written off as a mistake or as ignorance, and that they revealed that a “boy’s club” culture in DCU. “What it does is it reveals an underlying culture of misogyny, entitlement and objectification that harms all of the students on campus – not just women”. O’Donoghue said that he didn’t believe anyone was treated differently, and that fifty per cent of the A&F committee are women.
Society suspended following inappropriate conduct
Brendan Fernando Kelly Palenque Deputy News Editor & Clara Kelly Deputy Opinion Editor @thecollegeview THE Accounting & Finance (A&F) society are suspended from social activities for semester one after inappropriate conduct during their Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM). Clubs & Societies deemed A&F’s actions to go against DCU’s respect and dignity policy. They also ruled that the entire A&F committee must attend a respect and dignity workshop. In their original EMG, A&F had students go through a series of tasks in order to become their first-year representative. Those who ran for the position back on October 4 were put
into pairs. The first task was to pop a balloon placed in between the hips of each pair. The last couple to pop the balloon were eliminated from the running. The remaining students were then split into two groups: people in a relationship, and people who were single. The people who were single had to “shift” (tongue kiss) someone to move onto the next round. Accounting and finance student, Charlie Kinsella, who ran for first year rep at both EGMs, said the event took place on the last day of DCU’s smart consent classes, and that despite this, consent was never brought up. “They were basically jumping on top of people, they didn’t seem to really want to do it.” He said. “But there was 160 euro [the free mystery tour ticket]; That was certainly a big motivation.”
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