Radio Limerick One - Pirate Operation

Pirate Operation

In controversial circumstances which would see court actions continuing in to the next century, the station lost its license in 1998. However, it continued broadcasting through its UK legal licence on satellite; this was deflected by unkown community groups back on to the fm band. Its satellite license was removed in 1999 by the Radio Authority in the UK (who had issued it) due to intervention by the then IRTC in Ireland; it was now also broadcsting on the internet worldwide and this source was now deflected again providing a continuous FM broadcast until the Comreg clamp-downs on pirate broadcasting in the early 2000s, and had continued rebroadcasting after many raids.

During the pirate years Radio Limerick One continued to operate as it did when it was a licensed station. News bulletins were broadcast hourly by the newsroom staff such as Anne O' Grady, Trevor Anderson, and Aodhan Halligan with night time reports from UK commercial service IRN. Local obituaries were also read several times a day by the on-air presenter. RLO also had a dedicated sports team headed up by the then GAA PRO John Ryan and including Keith Fitzpatrick, Dominic Fitzgerald and many more. Local Gaelic Athletic Association matches were broadcast during season on Sundays using professional outside broadcast equipment where permitted. The station had a full schedule of programming from 7am-1am.

In the Morning, the breakfast show featured a mix of classic hits, news, weather and travel reports and some chat with presenters such as John Moloney, Sean Griffin and Eric Clarke.

This was followed in the afternoon with a lean towards Oldies/M.O.R/Country music often presented by Ger Bradshaw, formerly of Limerick 95fm, Darren Moloney and Fergus Hannan.

Drive-time and evenings featured a 60s/70s/80s music mix over the years including Francis Jones, Fintan Moloney and many others.

The night time hours of RLO typically featured chat shows. The "Late and Live" show was a phone in program made popular by Gerry Hannan. Uniquely the show had little or no telephone screening process thus meaning most anyone could get on the air. This led to some controversial incidents over the years and the show was infamous for its "anything goes" approach.

During overnight hours non-stop classic hits were played and in the latter years the "Late and Live" program would be repeated throughout the night.

In 2002, it applied for, was refused, and appealed to no effect a license to operate a medium wave service in the city of Limerick The license was won by a group chaired by Joe Harrington, a former RLO presenter and ironically never went on air.

During its period as a pirate, much use has been made of the Radio Data System to provide politically loaded messages to users with suitable equipment, ranging from "NO RLO NO VOTE" during a protest at the 2002 Irish General Election to "HELP RLO STOP BCI SLEEZE", a message of such length as to require scrolling. This only provoked more raids and court cases.

By late 2005 the station was under the management of Gerry Hannan who also resumed his late night talk show. The studio was moved to his local book shop.

After a Comreg raid on December 13, 2006, the station never returned. The engineers and 'community groups' are now busy working on other projects. Current owner Gerry Hannan announced he intended to go the legal route of IP broadcasting online. This involved broadcasting by web, anyone with a wireless router and broadband service could buy a WI-FI radio and tune in legally. However, the service was short lived and RLO has remained off air since.

Notable former presenters from the pirate incarnation of RLO to subsequently work on other radio stations include Francis Jones on Radio Kerry as well as John Moloney and Sean Buckley who are both now on Tipperary Mid west radio and Enda Caldwell now at 106.5 Riviera Radio in Monaco. Mary Beth Henschel was Live 95FM's Executive Producer for its talk show Limerick Today for a short time. She then moved on to RTÉ's Lyric FM station in Limerick. Colm Mcgrath is in Cork and Padraig Gallagher on Newstalk. Throughout the years most of the Live95fm presenters and staff worked for RLO.

Other programs include comedy legend Tom O'Donnell (Dear Hearts and Gentle People), Fr. Cletus Noone (Noone at Night), Tony Browne (Local History show), Frank Carberry (The Politics Show, Darren Moloney (American and Irish country, Classic Love, Top 40 show), Fergus Hannon (Saturday Sportsbeat), Fintan Moloney (Solid Gold Sunday), Dale Clancy (Top 8 at 8), Eric Murphy (Pillow Talk) and Sean Buckley (Buckley's People).