Pirate Predator is a new podcast series from RTÉ telling the definitive story of Eamon Cooke, a man of many faces who, on one hand, became a cultlike figure — filling a void for disillusioned youth through Radio Dublin in the 1970s and 1980s — while on the other became one of Ireland's most prolific child sexual abusers. Below, Peter Mulryan, the writer and narrator of Pirate Predator, revisits his own chilling encounter with Cooke.
Sometimes it all seems like this story happened in a parallel universe.
One where illegal radio stations operated from front bedrooms, where a vigilante could roam the streets at night fighting crime, where a singing priest was a major celebrity - and then I remember this was Ireland in the 1970s.
I always think of pirate radio as lightning in a bottle. For a fleeting, electric moment this movement lit up the lives of teenagers like myself; this wasn't De Valera’s Ireland, this was something new and exciting and shiny and brilliant and adults hated it.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Listen to The Electrician, the first episode of Pirate Predator
By 1981 I am in college and need a project to turn into a thesis – pirate radio was perfect. So I fired up my Honda 50 and started talking to people, and that’s when I first met Eamonn Cooke.
The building on Inchicore Road that Radio Dublin broadcast from was semi-derelict, but then so was half the city. Looking back now, it’s interesting what I remember and what has faded from memory.
Cooke handed me a mug of tea, I remember the film of grease on top. He sat slouched in a chair, mumbled and chain smoked – he rarely made eye contact, I remember that too. But what is seared on my mind is the worn sofa to my right and sunk into it the slight girl with a baby on her lap. I must have known I had stumbled onto something much darker.
This has been a difficult project, but for me that's all it was. For those who survived Cooke’s abuse, this is their everyday reality.
I asked Cooke about the rumours, that he was a child abuser. I don’t know exactly what he said, as all my tapes were subsequently lost in a flood. But I do remember he dismissed the allegations with a weary shake of his head. The girl on the sofa was very quiet. Again I remember that. She didn’t say a thing.
By the late 80s the lightning had fizzled out with the arrival of commercial radio in Ireland. I pulled all my notes together and wrote a book called Radio, Radio, a first pass at a history of that remarkable period. But by then I had already left the country and taken the ferry to London.
And maybe that’s where the story would have ended but for a quirk of fate.
It’s 2003 and I’m back in Ireland, this time producing a documentary for the BBC. I’m sipping a coffee in Bewley’s when the man opposite me flips open his newspaper. Eamonn Cooke is back in the headlines, only this time he’s on trial. I remember squinting at the newsprint and feeling all the bits fall into place. Everything now made sense. But how had I missed what was hiding in plain sight for so long. Ever since, this has been a pebble in my shoe, but not one I could shake free until the time was right.
Now a decade after Cooke’s death I hoped enough time had passed – enough time for some healing, for some clarity, for some truth. I thought I knew what this story was going to be, but I should have known better. This has been a difficult project, but for me that’s all it was. For those who survived Cooke’s abuse, this is their everyday reality. People have a remarkable capacity for survival, I’ve spoken to some amazing women for this documentary. Not everyone wanted to go on the record, but then that’s understandable.
And I’ve found out the name of the girl on the sofa. And I’ve spoken to her. And I still wish that back then, I’d had the wits to know what was going on.
Readers can listen to the first episode of Pirate Predator now, with new episodes dropping weekly - the series will also air on RTÉ Radio 1 on Sundays, starting this Sunday 17 May, at 7.30pm. Click here to learn more.
NB: This series features scenes of child sex abuse. If affected by any issues raised, please visit rte.ie/helplines
If you have any information about Eamon Cooke please contact, in confidence, Documentaries@rte.ie
