Paul Buckle started this site some five years ago....here's the lowdown on him!

Paul Buckle : I'm a self-confessed Radio Addict and was involved in radio of "one kind or another" since the age of 14. Post 1988 the Irish Pirates gone, I joined Downtown Radio part time as a newsreader.

On finishing Uni I went full time and read News until Downtown split it's Belfast frequencies and launched Cool FM in February 1990. There I stayed for 9 years. I quit in July 1999, not because of any massive fallout or spectacular fisticuffs in the boardroom, but simply because I felt I'd gone as far as I could go within the structure that existed there - it honestly was a case of keep taking the money and become increasingly frustrated or go elsewhere.

As a child, along with radio, I'd always been interested in BBC TV Continuity. Not the "sit in front of a camera and smile type" I must stress, but "the voice behind the little blue globe that presses buttons type" - the fact that you KNEW you were watching BBC Wales, BBC Scotland or BBC NI from the start of a junction to the end of a junction always interested me. Much to my poor parents horror I did have a rather intriguing collection of DX Masts upon the roof of family home (some of which remain to this day!).

With the advent of the BBC's digital services, this interest was rekindled and so I headed off to the BBC where I presently reside as a Continuity Director for BBC NI. I will freely admit to being hughly influenced by early Downtown, Sunshine and Nova - I was, if I'm honest, always fasinated by the various Dublin formats, nothing like NOVA had been heard here before and I guess that's probably why my radio career ended up in formatting and music production than on-air jocking.



Hi, I'm Henry O'Donovan. I broadcasted under the name George Long. I am doing the design for this website, and loving every minute of it! My first broadcast was in 1977, at 15 when I climbed through the window of my dormitory in a boarding school at 1am to work on LBC radio in Limerick. I spent nearly 2 years climbing through that window!

After boarding school in Limerick, I went to my home town of Dublin and got a job reading news on Southside Radio. I worked on a number of stations including Radio City, Capitol Radio, Radio Nova, Q102, Magic103, and Energy103. Mostly a newsreader, I would sometimes get a chance to do some DJ work.

Now, at 39, I am a web designer, copywriter (electronic media) and PC technician and I live in Sydney Australia. I came across Paul Buckle's website about three years ago and soon realised he had done more work than anyone else in getting actual sounds from the Irish Pirates on the web. He was kind enough to let me restructure his site, and I have to say it's a great pleasure to do so! I have never met Paul so I felt somewhat intrusive about reshaping his site. However, I am passionate that the irish radio industry's history be clearly defined and credited in as best an environment we can manage. Our vision is in no way limited. This site is in its infancy. irishpirates.com will grow steadily on a daily basis. The emphasis on this site is audio. There is no more direct way of "showing" people what went on in Dublin in the 70's and 80's than to let them hear it. And hear it you will!

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