Former Superpirate Presenters on Current Irish FM Radio Stations

Declan A Walsh

The '80s was the era of the "superpirates", i.e. the big pirate stations. I think it would be interesting to see which former presenters / deejays from those stations are still presenting on Irish FM stations today.

Unless otherwise stated, the examples I give below refer to Dublin superpirates.

Here are some examples:

Radio 1 - John Kenny (Cork's South Coast Radio, Radio Nova (I think) and Q102)

2FM - Colm Hayes (Radio Nova, Q102 and Energy 103)

Today FM - Phil Cawley (Radio Nova)

4FM - Gareth O'Callaghan (Radio Nova, Sunshine Radio, Energy 103 and Q102)
- Owen Larkin - also with Belfast's City Beat (Monaghan Town's Kiss FM)

Radio Nova - Greg Gaughren (Sunshine Radio, Kiss FM, Radio Nova and Q102)
- Pat Courtenay (Sunshine Radio and Energy 103)
- Mike Maloney (Kiss FM and Radio Nova)
- John Clarke (Radio Nova and Kiss FM and maybe briefly Energy 103)
- Ernie Gallagher - if he is still there (Radio Nova, Sunshine Radio and Energy 103)
- Bernie Jamieson, newsreader (Radio Nova)

Q102 - Scott Williams, also CEO (Radio Nova, Q102 and Energy 103)
- Aidan Cooney (Radio Nova (I think) and Q102)
- Gerry Stevens (Radio Nova and Q102)

FM104 - Chris Barry (Radio Nova and Q102)

Sunshine 106.8 - Carol Dooley (Q102)
- Joe Harrington (Q102 and maybe Sunshine Radio)

East Coast FM - Declan Meehan (Sunshine Radio and Radio Nova)

KFM - Stephen Keogh (Q102)

That's for starters.

ford fiesta

not including ARD / Big D as a Superpirate? If so, there would be Ian Dempsey, Ronan Collins and Dave Fanning and few others.

By the way, this and the Today FM weekend thread got me thinking apart from Jim O'Neill and Declan Meehan gone from Today FM, will we be hearing other presenters who used to fill in on Today FM, such as Bob Conway, Martin King, Derek Flood anymore ?

Cliff Walker

bob conway is Pencilled in for the bank holiday breakfast next monday and he filled in for Darcy on saturday afternoon about 2 weeks ago. Haven't heard flood or king on in a long time tho.

Declan A Walsh

ford fiesta wrote: »

not including ARD / Big D as a Superpirate? If so, there would be Ian Dempsey, Ronan Collins and Dave Fanning and few others.

By the way, this and the Today FM weekend thread got me thinking apart from Jim O'Neill and Declan Meehan gone from Today FM, will we be hearing other presenters who used to fill in on Today FM, such as Bob Conway, Martin King, Derek Flood anymore ?

No, they would have been considered small pirates, when you compare them to the size of Nova, etc - the superpirates had a very big reach and were big operations - none of your converted room or shed!

Incidentally, Martin King would be on the list if he is still doing any radio as he was with Sunshine Radio.

squonk

The first thought reading this that hits me is that perhaps Radio needed these pirate stations. We got some quality presenters out of that scene who cut their teeth on pirate airwaves and were doing it for the love of it. I'm guessing that working at a pirate wasn't really a paid gig, or if it was, wasn't something that you'd envisage making your fortune with.

Compare that with today's crop of media degree wielding, celebrity obsessed presenters who barely know the music they're playing and see Radio as a means to up their twitter following and a stepping stone to a TV gig or something else.