Two Walls and a Roof (42 page)

Over the following years the local radio went through many ups and downs, both technically and financially. Always we were striving for more coverage, and in the e
nd we decided to try and get a ‘medium w
ave
’
service going along with our local FM service. To do this we would have to construct a large wire aerial and we simply did not have the room at number four The Willows for it, so I got a brainwave
,
or as it turned out
‘
a brain storm
’
. We would use a fibreglass pole about thirty feet long and wind all the aerial wire around it. In theory it was technically correct, but in practice the pole both looked like and acted like a giant fishing rod, which I could not keep up in the air. During my brainstorm I concluded that we needed to encase
the ‘fishing rod’ in two twenty-
foot sewer pipes connected together. These pipes were to be attached to a chimney on the roof of our two
-
stor
e
y house and held in place by numerous stay wires. Once again the local fire brigade came to our aid and what was once a new housing estate soon resembled Cape Kennedy
. D
espite this being a new estate
,
not one single person objected to this eyesore. The people were so good then, and we had no Health and Safety issues to worry about either
. I
t was like being in our own Wild West and all one needed was imagination to succeed at anything.

The effort by all had been great, but still the aerial was a total flop. It could not be heard beyond Mallow town, but if you called any telephone in the area, you got a crystal clear signal from our studios. The joke in Charleville became
,
“Hey cove, if you want to h
ear NCLR, all you have to do is call someone in Mallow
. Y
ou don’t even need a radio at all”. This was very embarrassing for me, but we just did not have the room to string up a two hundred foot wire, so I needed to rethink our situation.

Then a friend of Jack’s
,
a man called Jim Sullivan
,
came to the rescue and told me to string up whatever I liked outside on his farm, as he had plenty of room.

Etta and I set off
,
complete with rope and wire
,
and arrived at Jim’s farm. I climbed up a huge tree
of
at least sixty feet high with my rope over my shoulder and began t
r
ying to tie it off on the tree. Then Jim’s father arrived. He demanded that I come down immediately. Obviously Jim had neglected to tell him about us. Etta tried to explain that Jim had given us permission, but he ignored her totally, and I ignored him totally, as I did not want to climb that tree a second time. He got mad and went into the house
,
returning with a shotgun. He shouted up to me to
,
“Get down now I tell you, get down this minute or I’ll blow you down”, menacingly pointing the gun up at me. I came down figuring that no radio
was worth getting killed for
. We left and Jim later explained that his dad had thought I was trying to hang myself. We all laughed at it a lot later, and once again I climbed the tree, being like a bloody monkey in those days. That aerial did work
,
and for many years our medium wave service came from Jim’s farm in Dromdowney
,
outside of Mallow. It never ceased to amaze me how good the farming community were to us in those days. They were always so helpful to me personally and Jim Sullivan was one of the best.

Some
time later
Maurice Brosnan and I climbed M
oun
t Hillary, which is a moun
tain also outside of Mallow
well over twelve hundred feet high. In the ongoing search for more FM radius, I knew that height is gold and we felt that if we could get on top of a real mountain
,
then we were made.  We found the exact place, and on the way down we got complete
ly lost. We arrived into a farm
yard w
here we were warmly greeted by G
erry and Mary Lucy
, also farmers who
owned the land at the top. They could not do enough for us when they found out that we were with ‘the radio’. It was decided to set up a transmitter on the top of their mountain and th
us began a friendship that last
s to this day. Their daughter Deirdre had a best friend called Laurie O’Flynn, now Laurie Rickard, and that
same Laurie is helping me proof
read this very book. There are no accidents in life I feel. We got the site working after numerous trials and tribulations
,
and it became the cornerstone of the pirate radio service from then on. We would continue to use that site until legal radio began in nineteen ninety and we moved to the other side of the mountain
,
which was even higher.

In about nineteen eighty three we planned to build a new tower for the medium wave service on yet another farmer
’
s land. He was a man called Jimmy Frawley and he lived in a pla
ce called Li
sgriff
i
n. The site was perfect and the tower was ready, but almost on the day when it was to be erected, a Gulf Stream
Jet piloted by a South American
Captain Ocana made an emergency landing in Mallow Racecourse. The plane
’
s insurers decided to build a runway to get the jet off the ground, and over the next five weeks the captain became a regular contributor to our illegal radio. I know that on the day of the landing, our reporter was first on the scene and I arrived soon after. It was some sight to see. The plane had clipped the tops off of all the white racing posts, as it had literally run out of fuel as it landed. The captain had broken English, but he became an instant celebrity and we in the radio became his local newsletter.

The downside for me though was that the firm who were contracted to put up our tower now had a big contract to build a runway, and we had to wait our turn for the tower to be erected. It would have grave financial implications for NCLR as a company, as by then our costs had drastically increased and we needed the extra radius to make it work financially, and that never came because the tower was late. However
,
there was going to be a huge media event takin
g place over the next few weeks
and we were right in the middle of it all
,
even though we were as illegal as it gets. I felt that somehow I was going to be a part of his
tory, as a plane would take off against all the odds;
its captain was a friend of ours
and
I would be broadcasting the whole event being watched by the world
’
s legal media
,
RTE included.

Michael O’Sullivan and the captain would become great friends over the course of the next few exciting weeks. The town was buzzing with excitement as the runway neared completion, and then the question we all asked was
,
‘Did he have enough room for an actual take off?’, because a line of tall trees marked the end of ‘the runway’. The captain promised us an exclusive interview on the morning that he would leave, but more to the point
,
he promised to tell us when that morning would be.  Secrecy was vital as the civil authorities did not want a huge crowd gathering to see a possible fireball if the plane exploded in the trees. We were sworn to se
crecy too, but I had to get an ‘outside b
roadcast
’
(OB)
van lined up the night before and that gave the whole game away. The world’s media, who were keeping a close watch on us, actually descended on the racecourse when they saw me at work that night. I had inadvertently given the game away and I got blamed as the one who blabbed, even though I had only told those I needed to help me rig the OB.   By ten
a.m.
the next morning, the whole road was completely blocked with every kind of vehicle imaginable. Camper vans, horse boxes, old vans, cars, and even bicycles were parked all over the place, and thousands and thousands of people had climbed all over these vehicles for a better view. It was the most amazing sight to see and we had a
prime view from the top of our b
roadcasting unit.

We had been on the air since early morning, and at the appropriate tim
e the captain arrived into our u
nit and began thanking the people of Mallow for the great welcome they had given him. It was quite emotional liste
ning to him in his poor English and knowing too
that
,
unlike the other media, I had placed our van just yards from the trees where he might soon crash. For me at least
,
that possibility made it even harder to listen to him speak about how great we were, and how much he liked us as a radio station. Then he thanked us all personally, shook
hands with us all
, and promised to fly back over our
u
nit if he made it, dipping his wings in a salute to the ‘pirates’ of Mallow. We were ecstatic, as to be given legitimacy by someone so famous and being recognized
as part of a great media event
by
television and r
adio services from around the world, was almost too much to bear. We all wished him well, and he left for his jet. Within minutes we could hear the roar of the mighty jet engines in the distance. As it rapidly approached us we all held our breath and prayed for his success.  I really did not think he would get the lift in time, he seemed too low and too slow to me, but he did make it with just inches to spare. I actually saw bits of leaves and limbs fly off the trees and I roared so loud with a cheer that I could hear myself over the engines. I jumped up and down with excitement as the plane became a dot, heading west for Mexico. Michael, who was describing the event live, lo
oked deeply disappointed
as he felt sure the captain would honour his promise and dip the wing
to
giv
e
us final legitimacy, but now he looked to be gone. As he was about to hand back to the studio I noticed the dot getting bigger and I shouted
,
“He’s coming back
,
look, look, here he comes”.

The jet shot right over us, tilting the wings almost vertical
while
the whole crowd cheered so loud
that our microphones were drowned out. The captain had honoured his promise, and that day I was on such a high that I took the rest of it off. Every person was talking about the event and the dipping of the wings for weeks and weeks. We in radio were stars for a day at least. Just recently a movie
w
as made called
The Runway
, which is loosely based on that famous day. There is even a view
that I figure
as the pirate radio personality in the movie, but I have my doubts
. S
till, I did figure in the real thing, and that’s good enough for a ‘dunk’ from Buttevant.

I stand to be corrected,
but not too long after that day
we got the tower up and the radios improved dramatically
. B
y then it was all too late for NCLR, and the directors had no choice but to hand the whole ope
ration over to the community at
a public meeting held in Mallow. The station would from then on be called NCCR or North Cork Community Radio
,
and Jack and Fath
er Denis would re-
enter my story.

It is only fair to say that the pirate radio years would rob me and Etta of a normal family life. I was never at home, and when I was home, I was only half there
. U
sually my head would be glued to the radio in case it went off or sounded bad. All this stress was happening at the expense of my three children. By then my eldest son Adrian was about eight and Lynda
,
my daughter
,
would be about five years old. Kyrl
,
my youngest son
,
was still a baby, and so I think he escaped from having no dad, but the other two were truly reared by their mother, and all credit is due to her for how well they turned out. At the time of writing
,
Adrian has just immigrated to Australia, and Lynda is in the process of completing a Civil Engineering Degree, having already obtained a Marketing Degree in Dublin. Adrian has a
PhD
in Computer Science and my Kyrl is head of IT for Cork
’s 96fm and C103, as well as engineer for
Limerick
’s Live 95 r
adio station. I am exceptionally proud of all three of them, and it never ceases to amaze me just how funny they all are and how different in personality each of them is. Even though I was missing for most of their rearing, when I was there it was usually a time of drama and fun.  They often remind me of one occasion when we got the mad idea that we should
buy a big tent
and get in
to the camping spirit of things
as a way of having family time, and it almost ended in an early divorce.  We bought this huge and very expensive tent in Cork. It had no assembly instructions with it, or they got lost before we got to read them
,
and that would be typical of us anyway.  Etta wanted to go off on a trip almost immediately, but not me. I felt we needed to assemble the tent as a test, and where better than out in our own backyard. I just wanted to get the feel for it before we got marooned in Kerry. This was an almost prophetic statement as it transpired. We set about this assembling on a warm Sunday afternoon, and after three hours we had constructed this God awful
monstrosity. It leaned sideways
and tilted down in the front, much like a
Bedouin tent
. We had started off assembling happily enough, but after an hour of confusion, the shouting began and all I wanted to do in the end was get it up somehow. I left it up for the next few days
,
being in no mood to even attempt
taking it down. T
hen of course it rained, ruining the inside and outside, as it all fell over from a wind in the night. I was neither impressed nor surprised at any of this
,
not being a camping type at heart.  Etta tried to dry it out over the next week or so, and even though we had made a total mess of our first attempt at assembly, she was determined that we should go to Kerry the following weekend. Myself and Adrian believed tha
t we could make our own diagram
based on laying out every single pole, bar, and peg in the backyard before we would commit to the trip
,
and this we did.  It had all kinds of poles and bars and spikes, as well as a huge number of pegs and st
rings. It was a sheer nightmare
just looking at all this stuff on the ground, but it was Saturday and Etta was hassling us to get a move on with the figuring. We tried for hours to make some kind of sense of it all, and finally we thought we had it solved and drew it all out on a bit of paper.  Then almost on a whim, we set off for Tralee in the late evening sunshine.  When
we got to the Banna Strand camp
site it was pitch black.  We set about setting up the
h
arem by the light from the car.  This didn’t go well for us, not well at all
. F
irstly we were all hungry and tired
,
and to make matters worse
,
I had forgotten the bloody drawing, so we were working off memory or guesswork again.  Because of the rush leaving, we had decided on a barbecue for our food after the tent was up.  This barbe
c
ue was to be our dinner, tea and supper, and Etta was to do
the
cooking while we assembled the Bedouin tent
.  She had never done any barbecuing before and no matter what she tried, she could not get the charcoal to light. I had no idea either, but Adrian, Lynda and I were already fighting and shouting as to how to assemble the tent.  By then it was really getting late, and we were all cold, hungry and still had no place to sleep. Unknown to us, we were the cause of much merriment from the other experienced campers on the site. We temporarily gave up on the tent and I took over the fire work, beginning by making balls of newspaper and setting them on fire, then roaring at Etta to blow the flames like mad under the coals.  This was no good, as she smoked too much and had no breath at all. I was arguing with her about smoking and blaming the fags for all our ills as the kids tried to get the tent set
up without me.  I had a fall
back plan for making tea.  This was a small little gas ring that worked on a portable container of gas, and I had bought two of these containers, so we were set.  I called a halt to all work, saying that we needed tea to think, and got out my gas ring. I had no idea how to connect this ring to its gas con
tainer, and on my first attempt
it exploded, spewing liquid gas in every direction.  It was a miracle the fire had gone out, or there could have been a real tragedy. I got such a shock that I threw it into a sand dune until it stopped hissing.  In my ignorance I thought it was a faulty tank, so I repeated the exercise with the second tank, cautiously screwing down the ring
. O
nce again it too
exploded.  Now I was really mad
and threw the whole lot into the dunes again and left it there. No tea for any of us now by the look of things.