THE FRC IRELAND SECTION: Intro - FRC Newsletter - FRC Sounds Alternative - 1978 in radio - Print era ends - FRC on the radio

The Free Radio Campaign Ireland by Kieran Murray

1976: FRC Ireland – ‘Newsletter’

I got a present of a typewriter from my parents and set about compiling a news sheet. I called the news sheet ‘Newsletter’ and each edition was numbered in the order that they were produced.

‘Newsletter # 1‘ was published in April 1976 and cost 20p (twenty pence) plus an International Reply Coupon. At that time, an IRC could be purchased from post offices across Europe and their value could be exchanged to cover the cost of a postage stamp on a letter sent to that particular country.

The first edition of the FRC- Ireland ‘Newsletter’ featured, as the main story, the history of Capitol Radio. This was an easy article to write and compile as I had been part of the team that set that station up, along with my school friend Ciarán Burke (birth name: Ciarán Gaffney / DJ name: Chris Barry).

Capitol Radio was located in Rathmines, Dublin and broadcast on AM 220 metres each weekend (early Saturday mornings for 90 minutes and Sunday afternoons for 3 hours) from August to December 1975. All shows were pre-recorded and I had a one-hour music show on Sundays 14:00 to 15:00. I used the on-air name of Kenneth Murphy (2nd August 1975 was my first ever radio broadcast.)

The station was raided by the Post & Telegraphs and Gardaí on 21st December 1975. This put an end to my first time ever broadcasting on pirate radio – but it was not to be my last!

The FRC – Ireland ‘Newsletter’ was 4 pages long and the last page had promotional material – selling cassettes of airchecked Dublin pirate radio broadcasts, plus Radio Caroline stickers and posters (printed and sent to me by FRC – UK) Sadly, none of these were very popular and I only ever sold a handful of cassettes and a few stickers.

1976: FRC Ireland- ‘Newsletter’ Was Very Difficult

This publication and the work that I had to put into it may seem easy by today’s standards, but remember, way back then it was 1976 and it was a completely different world. There were no tablets, no mobile phones, no blogs, no web pages, no social media, no internet. Just me, my typewriter and a handwritten page of names and addresses of the members who had subscribed.

I had to type each page of the magazine out on my typewriter. If I made a mistake, I had to type the entire page out again. I used a product called ‘Letraset’ (dry-transfer lettering product) to print any of the typeface large letters that could not be done using my typewriter. If I made a mistake with that lettering, I had to re-type the entire page out again. So you can imagine, this was very, very time consuming and frustrating also.

All this was going on while trying to study for my Leaving Certificate exam the following year. Such was my love and passion for what I was doing! After the pages were typed out, I used to bring them to a shop in Wynnefield Road, Rathmines called ‘Hedges’. They had a photocopying machine and I would pay for each page to be photocopied. It was expensive. Again, this was not easy as the only money I had was the pocket money that my parents used to give me.

The subscription that each member paid was barely enough to cover all these costs. After I had paid for the photocopies, the staples, the postage stamps and the envelopes – there was no money left for anything else.

FRC – Ireland had about 15 members at this time. The 4 photocopied pages were stapled, folded and put in envelopes. A postage stamp was applied and each envelope was personally addressed and posted by me.

So far so good.

1976: FRC Ireland – ‘Legal Deposit’

Shortly after posting out those first copies, that had financially cleared me out, something interesting happened. I started to receive a number of official letters – these were all from major libraries in the UK and Ireland. The Oxford Library, The Scottish Library, The Welsh Library, Trinity College Library (Dublin and London) and many more. Each of the letters quoted a copyright Law called ‘Legal Deposit’. In today’s world in 2022 it states: “Legal deposit requires publishers to provide a copy of every work they publish in the UK to the British Library.”

The penalties for not complying with this request were quite extreme and as a teenager, I did not have any wish to get into trouble with the law, or face a fine. So, I had to go back to Hedges in Wynnefield Road, Rathmines and get extra copies photocopied to send on to the various libraries. This really pissed me off. I was so annoyed. I was so broke also, because I had to ask my parents for extra money in order to do this. This was really stressing, plus my Leaving Certificate Exam was looming!

At this time, I had 20 subscribers and 25 additional requests from libraries so I had to get over 180 individual photocopied pages done each time – this was just killing me. Not only that, but the libraries kept sending letters to me – reminding me that they were ‘missing edition 2 or 3’ or whatever and restating the fines for not complying. They also sent repeat letters reminding me that ‘the next edition is due…’ Looking back at this now in 2022, I’m quite happy that they required me to provide a copy of my publication back then – because it means that archived somewhere, in all the major libraries in the UK and Ireland is a copy of my publications FRC – Ireland ‘Newsletter’ and ‘Sounds Alternative’

Next: Newsletter namechange

Back: Kieran explains how he got motivated to start the FRC.

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