Sunday, October 09, 2005

Roscommon Community Radio



Producers in FCA had, sometimes, to spend a week with Community Radio. This photo, which I think is a gem, is from the Town Square in Roscommon, in October 1978.

Community Radio, which was Sean MacReamoinn's idea, served parts of Ireland which RTE had hitherto neglected. Radio then served Dublin (in the sense of official Ireland) and the West very well, and Clare, Galway and Donegal notably so. But RTE producers mostly ignored the Midlands. Indeed RTE's cognitive map of the country seemed to exclude the Midlands, Waterford, the North East. Community Radio began to address this omission. Along with Corkabout (the Cork area local opt-out service), MacReamoinn envisaged Community Radio as a prototype for a RTE local service.

Community Radio used the Mobile Radio Studio, which at the time was something of a technological novelty. The MRS was borrowed by BBC Wales and BBC Northern Ireland for experiments similar to RTE Community Radio.




2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi,
These pictures are incredible. I am from Roscommon town and recognise a lot of the faces in these photos. It's rare to see old pictures of Roscommon that focus on people rather than buildings or scenes.
Are there any other pictures from this time availabe, it would great.

misterpaulfinn@gmail.com

Brendan McCarthy said...

I'm glad you liked the pictures. But I'm afraid this is probably all I've got. If others turn up, I will certainly post them.