Irish Public Service Broadcasting - 1920s

First Radio Broadcast from 2RN: 1 January 1926

2RN began broadcasting from a studio and office at 36 Little Denmark Street, now the site of the ILAC Centre in Dublin. The transmitter was a 1.5 KW Marconi Q type, broadcasting on 390 meters from a hut in McKee Barracks beside the Phoenix Park.

The station call-sign was originated by the British Post Office, the authority responsible at that time, and the name 2RN was thought to be inspired by the last three syllables of the song title "Come Back To Erin".

With only one studio there was a silent, or not so silent, interlude between the programmes as music stands and other furniture were moved about.

Douglas Hyde, founder of the Gaelic League and later first President of the Irish Free State, officially opened 2RN.

Listen here to an extract from Douglas Hyde's address. Speaking in Irish, Hyde talks of his hope for radio as a unifying force for Irish listeners at home and the many thousands or Irish living abroad.

"We Were Very Primitive, But We Got There"

Jimmy Mahon, who joined 2RN a week after it began broadcasting, tells Donnchadh Ó Dúlaing his memories of those early days for Irish radio.

Seamus Clandillon- First Director of Broadcasting: Appointed 1925

The first Director of Broadcasting was Seamus Clandillon.

A civil servant, teacher, singer and fluent Irish speaker, Clandillon was appointed Director of Broadcasting following two selection processes.

Dáil Éireann decreed by the Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1926, that broadcasting should be a state service, organised by the Postal Ministry and financed by licence fees, advertising and import duties on wireless sets and components.

Cork Studio Opens: 26 April 1927

The service expanded in 1927 when a 1kw sister station, 6CK, was opened in Cork under the direction of Seán Neeson. The station was opened on 26 April by J.J. Walsh, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. It was first located in the former Women's Gaol in Sunday's Well which now houses "The Radio Museum Experience". 6CK remained on air until 1930.

Listen here to a short extract from Minister J.J. Walsh, speaking at the opening of Cork studios.

2RN Programming Schedules: Example from 1926

This is an example of "Tuairisc an Bhollscaire", the announcer's report of programmes as broadcast. The report listed timings of items, copyright details and any incidents or interruptions to the broadcast programme.

Beginning at 7.30 pm each evening, listeners were given a "tuning note", generally a steady tone to enable them to "tune in" their valve receiver or crystal set properly.

All broadcasts from 2RN were live, so artists had to remain at the station for long periods. Note here for example, that Miss Doran sings at 9.16 pm and at 10.25 pm, while Mr Young sings at 9.43 pm and at 10.31 pm: this was a long night for the artists.

The evening opened with a live Irish lesson. On other nights, German, French and Italian language lessons were broadcast.

The overall emphasis was on music and, in particular, on solo performers. The repertoire was dull, and listeners soon tired of the seemingly endless selection of parlour songs and Edwardian ballads.

There was an occasional relay from the BBC, usually a concert relayed from London. The 2RN station trio would normally provide instrumental interludes.

At this early stage (January 1926), there were still no children's programmes, (no one had been appointed yet to do the work), no news bulletins (because there was no agreement with news agencies) and not even a weather forecast. There were few speech programmes in the early years of 2RN.

Apart from the language lesson, the only speech programme this evening was a talk on gardening by Mr Sherrard of the Department of Agriculture.

Once the novelty of "Irish wireless" had worn thin, listeners became dissatisfied. But the Director had only been allocated twenty pounds a day to pay artists, and a city the size of Dublin had a limited number of artists willing to wait around the tiny Denmark Street Studio all evening to sing one or two songs.

Mairéad Ní Ghráda, Woman Organiser: Appointed 1927

Mairéad Ní Ghráda was the first Woman Organiser, producing women's and children's programmes, and the first woman studio announcer on 2RN. She also wrote radio drama. Nowadays, she is best known for her ground-breaking play, "An Triail", produced in 1964 in Dublin's Damer Hall and first broadcast on RTÉ in 1965. She also contributed much to Irish schools curricula, writing several textbooks.

Listen here to Mairéad Ní Ghráda talking to P.P. Maguire in 1966. She explains the role of Woman Organiser and recalls the early days of drama production at 2RN.

And what did the listeners think?: 1920s

Some listeners wrote to the Director of Broadcasting. In the main, their correspondence consisted of complaints. Many letters appeared in the newspapers under pseudonyms such as "Cat's Whisker" or "Antenna" or "Two-Valve". How many of these published letters were genuine and how many "inspired" by the newspapers themselves, fearful and jealous of the new medium, is now hard to judge.

There were three types of complaints. Firstly, listeners complained of poor reception. Electrical interference was a particular problem in the early days; it was caused by machinery and even by passing trams. The reception area was strictly limited. Clandillon could be less than diplomatic in his defence of the station. For instance, when wireless owners in Cork complained they could not receive the Dublin station, Clandillon's response was that they did not know how to operate their sets. Complaints from Cork waned somewhat when the Cork 6CK station was opened in 1927.

Secondly, there were complaints, and well-justified ones, about programme content. The evening fare from 2RN soon became monotonous, due primarily to the frequent re-appearance of the small number of artists who were willing to accept the modest fees. But this was more to do with shortage of money than with any lack of artistic ambition on the part of the Director. His permitted programme costs for each evening, that is, the fees for artists, copyright payments and costs of relayed programmes, was £20. Moreover, one relayed concert from London or Belfast could use up almost the entire budget for an evening's schedule.

The third kind of complaint about 2RN, regarding the style of presentation, might be understood as "the shock of the new". This was a most difficult issue for the Director. His letter writers complained of too many, or not enough, announcements and programmes in Irish; too much, or not enough, classical music; too much, or not enough, sport or plays.

People in Ireland needed to become accustomed to the new technology of wireless. Reception of 2RN could be difficult or erratic, especially if you lived more than twenty miles away from Dublin or Cork. Unlike today's sensitive radio sets with built-in aerials, it was often necessary to connect the crystal or valve wireless set on to a long wire aerial and an earth.

Although at the start-up of the service in January 1926 there were officially about 2,500 licences only, many more people owned unlicenced receivers: many listeners had sets since before the licences were introduced when they had had "free reception" from cross-channel stations.

The "Evening Herald" of 6 April 1926 complained bitterly that the imposition of a wireless licence was "robbing country people of a long-promised amusement. Because of their distance from the Dublin transmitter, they needed dearer battery-powered sets to receive the programmes. A letter in the "Evening Herald" complained:

"...it was said a while ago that the Dublin Station was going to do great things for the people of the country, and bring a new wonder into the lives of the farmers and so on... Yes, but the wonder is paid for dearly!"

2RN Transferred to GPO: October 1928

2RN left the cramped conditions of its single studio in Little Denmark Street in 1928 and moved into its new headquarters in the General Post Office (GPO), which had been re-constructed after shelling by British forces during the 1916 Rising.

2RN's move to the GPO in O'Connell Street meant that the station now had three studios. One for drama, one for music and one for the announcer.