The Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company make live music in Dun Laoghaire heard at the horse show in Ballsbridge.
In August 1923, the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company demonstrated their technology with live transmissions in Dublin. During the week of the Dublin Horse Show, a transmitter was erected at the top of the Royal Marine Hotel in Dun Laoghaire and musical performances relayed to the Royal Dublin Society in Ballsbridge. Visitors to the Dublin Horse Show at the RDS could hear the music being performed in Dun Laoghaire through a speaker in the Wellington Hall.
The wireless concerts were to be given each day of Dublin Horse Show week between 2.30 and 5.00 p.m. The concerts would be transmitted from the Royal Marine Hotel under the orchestra leader John Clarke Barry and members of the Rathmines and Rathgar Musical Society.
One of the performers in Dun Laoghaire was the tenor William F Watt. He shared memories of his part in the Marconi demonstration in conversation with Val Joyce.
We were brought up to the top of the hotel and the set up there as far as I can remember was we sang into an ordinary telephone reciever.
This performance was relayed to a speaker at the RDS in Ballsbridge, where visitors to the Dublin Horse Show could hear the voice of William F Watt, who was singing in the Royal Marine Hotel in Dun Laoghaire. Among the interested listeners was the Governor General Tim Healy.
The Marconi wireless demonstration was abandoned after just one day following an order from the Postmaster General to cease the transmission.
Louis Wilson of the Marconi company was impressed by the artistes who took part in the demonstration and invited William F Watt to London to perform there.
'Morning Airs' broadcast on 01 January 1971. The presenter is Val Joyce.
