The Republican Beat: How pirate radio proclaimed the founding of the Republic

1916 was the year of the first pirate "station" broadcast in Ireland. It was apparently located on Middle Abbey Street, Dublin, from where, over the course of several hours, the rebel army broadcast to the world that an Irish Republic had been declared.

Despite the advent of legal radio in that republic, through the 1940s and into the 1970s, at least one Dublin pirate persevered - mutating as the years ticked by from The Coleen Home service to Radio Laxey, and eventually Radio Galaxy.

Changing names, frequencies, and outwitting the authorities - as the owner of this station, Tony Boylan, spent decades doing - fairly well epitomises the history of pirate radio, which at one time was very big business.

In 1980 Chris Cary and Robbie Robinson launched Sunshine Radio. A slick and professional station, it won a lot of listeners, as well as advertisers. The two founders soon parted company and Cary set up some serious competition in the form of Radio Nova. Both stations shared a less talk, more music policy, a change from the more personal format of the earlier pirates.

In 1983, the government launched a massive clampdown on pirate stations. The years rolled by, new legislation was introduced and slowly new stations were given legal status. Today it is hard to know exactly how many pirate stations there are, or what their listenership figures are, but they still have a strong, and important, presence on the airwaves.