COLUMN: Thirty years of local radio celebrated in Mayo town

Community Radio Castlebar last week celebrated thirty years of transmission as CRCfm, a landmark which few would have envisaged back in 1995 when then Minister for Trade and Tourism, Enda Kenny, launched the station in the premises now occupied by Minister Alan Dillon. Even then, community radio was seen as a brave venture – largely unfunded, dependant in great part on a cohort of volunteer presenters and back office workers, and with a set of official constraints which would have challenged the most optimistic.

The first iteration of community radio in the county town had come several years earlier during Song Contest week. RTÉ’s outside broadcasting unit was located at the Travellers’ Friend Hotel to transmit the contest each evening, but also to be used by Mike Murphy for his morning radio show. For the surplus hours in between, the unit was placed at the disposal of a small local committee which was invited to transmit material of local interest within the confines of the town.

The experiment worked well, so much so that a few years later, RTÉ decided to push the boat of community radio in Mayo out a little further. This time, a mobile studio was located in the grounds of Marsh House in Castlebar with a remit to deliver three weeks of daily broadcasting across the county. In tandem with that, four other local studios were set up across the county to feed material into the unit in Castlebar. The four chosen locations were in Ballina, under the watch of Benny Walkin; Claremorris, where John Kirrane headed the local team; Foxford, where Fr John Doherty was co-ordinator, and Knock, where the existing studio was under the guidance of Fr Colm Kilcoyne.

The selection of five towns in what was termed the 'east' of the county did not meet with universal approval, especially in Westport, where both the Chamber of Commerce and the UDC were not slow to denounce the perceived slight to the only other urban conurbation in the county. The outrage was only somewhat appeased when it was explained by Ted Berry, a native of the town and the technical manager for the whole project, that the decision had been made on purely technical grounds and was never meant as a reflection on the status of Westport.

READ MORE: ALERT: Major Mayo road set for closure over course of fortnight

With the case for local radio growing stronger, the IRTC (The Independent Radio and Television Commission) was set up to regulate the rollout of regional radio. This led to the licensing in 1989 of commercial radio stations, with Mid West Radio, Galway Bay fm and North West Radio securing the franchises for the three main counties of Connaught. But yet the call for more localised community radio continued, a concept which would complement, but not compete with, the newly established stations by concentrating on material of educational, social and historical content.

With the approval of the IRTC, CRC was launched in 1995, with Paddy McGuinness as first chairman of the Board, Henry McGlade as Station Manager, and a hundred volunteers signed up to lend their talents to the new venture. As the parent body for radio as a whole, the IRTC was understandably cautious about the creation of community radio. Yes, the Commission wanted the stations to be successful, but yet not so successful as to pose a challenge to the newly established commercial stations. To that end, a set of constraints were put in place – community stations were not allowed to sell advertising, and were only allowed to transmit within a five mile radius of their base. For Castlebar, that meant that if the signal was to be picked up in Partry, then the IRTC would be down like a ton of bricks on the management.

It was a situation akin to being sent into battle with one hand tied behind one’s back, and it led to the dramatic resignation of one of the station’s newly discovered stars. The legendary Willie 'The Shoe' McNeely had joined CRC at the outset, returning home from his work in Dublin each Friday and then presenting his unique sports show for two hours on Saturday. So popular did the programme become, and so quickly, that Willie (quite rightly) felt that he was entitled to a bigger listenership than the five mile rule would allow. His patience finally running out, on a memorable Saturday morning, he finished his show with an eloquent excoriation of the IRTC and all it stood for. It was a burning of the bridges; Willie stormed out. Shortly afterwards he was to join Mid West radio, and went on to become one of the most popular and well-known radio personalities in Ireland.

Older hands recalled last week the dependence on, and the generous support, of FAS employment schemes in ensuring the survival of the station in the early days. On one famous occasion, the renewal of the FAS scheme was in serious doubt because of the opposition of one particular senior official in Galway, who had developed a deep antipathy toward the Castlebar station. As it happened, FAS itself was being heavily funded by the EU, a colossal €80 million per year was being channelled to the organisation via the Social Affairs Directorate in Brussels. This disbursement, in turn, was in the absolute gift of the then Commissioner for Social Affairs, Padraig Flynn, a situation which gave him considerable leverage over FAS and its workings. As so easily happens, the Commissioner got to hear of the obstacles and difficulties being posed for CRC by the self regarding functionary in Galway, a concern he expressed directly to the Director General of FAS when the latter visited Brussels to negotiate the annual revenue stream of Flynn-endorsed largesse.

Needless to say, the difficulties were speedily smoothed over, the FAS scheme for Castlebar was reinstated, and CRC sailed on into three decades of broadcasting success.