Apart from today, that is. On January 1st, 1926, Irish broadcasting began, as Douglas Hyde<\/a> \u2013 later to become first president of the Republic \u2013 opened the radio station 2RN, located over a small post office on Little Denmark Street in Dublin. (It\u2019s now part of the site of the Ilac Shopping Centre.)<\/p>\n The station was audible over a 30km radius, with many thousands of listeners, although the department of posts and telegraphs suspected there were many more sets than the number of licences sold. An Irish tradition that has continued.<\/p>\n The first director was Seamus Clandillon, a civil servant who, being a renowned traditional singer, would oblige with a few bars of a song if a programme under-ran. His wife, M\u00e1ighr\u00e9ad N\u00ed Annag\u00e1in, likewise sang on air \u2013 so often that she was dubbed M\u00e1ighr\u00e9ad N\u00ed On Again. <\/p>\n Seamus instituted a Station Orchestra, a grandiose title for what became known as a c\u00e9il\u00ed band. The following year, the Cork station 6CK opened \u2013 but not for long. It closed three years later, with the promise of a new high-powered transmitter to cover the country.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in October 1928, the GPO on the newly named O\u2019Connell Street had been virtually rebuilt after the shelling and fires of 1916, so the small radio staff moved 100 metres down Henry Street into new studios on the top floor of the impressive building. Modest at first, with a small talks studio and a larger one for musicians and performers, the GPO became the home of Irish radio for the next 48 years.<\/p>\n In 1932, Ireland made its mark internationally when the new high-powered transmitter came on the air with a spectacular: the Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, viewed by many as \u00c9amon de Valera<\/a>\u2019s trailer for a new Ireland.<\/p>\n The station appeared on some wireless sets as Radio Athlone. Six years later the new Irish Constitution was passed, and the new director of radio, TJ Kiernan, renamed the station Radio \u00c9ireann. (Kiernan, like his predecessor, was also married to a ballad singer, Delia Murphy.)<\/p>\n And what of the programmes? They had started in the 1920s as a sort of Edwardian musical evening, with polite talks about visits to Rangoon and refined songs about Moonlight on the Ganges. Under Kiernan, though, programmes had become more inventive, ingenious and sometimes positively surreal \u2013 golf and swimming lessons, the opening of an art exhibition at the Royal Hibernian Academy, and dancing lessons for schoolchildren.<\/p>\n During the war years, news bulletins were notable for their neutral and impartial reports covering both sides of the conflict: they might report that the British had claimed severe German losses at sea and follow with a report that the German navy had claimed that they won decisively. <\/p>\n Radio \u00c9ireann came into its own in 1945 with the celebrated reply by de Valera, as taoiseach, to Winston Churchill<\/a>\u2019s diatribe about Ireland\u2019s neutrality. Dev\u2019s moderate speech almost implied that Churchill may have celebrated a little too much and had, perhaps, been overserved.<\/p>\n Radio\u2019s big changes came after the war, in 1947, when the station, with the authority of the department of posts and telegraphs, acquired a symphony orchestra, a light orchestra, a choir and a permanent repertory company of actors. <\/p>\n It was a remarkable artistic achievement, as well as a social one. Musicians and actors had always been worried freelance performers, but now they had regular and permanent jobs, with the bonus that when applying for motor insurance they could list their occupation as civil servant.<\/p>\n [\u00a0Live from the GPO: Brendan Balfe on making waves at Radio \u00c9ireannOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n By the 1950s the studios were extended: a new studio on the fourth floor, mainly for sponsored programmes, and three along the front of the GPO, including a new drama suite. The studios were connected by a corridor about 100 metres long, with white tiles and frosted glass, that the British conductor John Barbirolli famously described as \u201cthe longest row of lavatories in the world\u201d. <\/p>\n And the place was full of officers: talks officer, sponsored officer, balance and control officers.<\/p>\n This is the place I entered in 1964. I had written a letter that was a little cheeky, asking the head of music, Kevin Roche, for an audition. I got one and made my first broadcast on July 5th, with a music series called Then and Now. I was 18, and thus began my happy life as a broadcaster.<\/p>\n My career was coloured by many fortuitous events and unexpected opportunities. Shortly after my radio debut, I was asked by Harry Thuillier to write scripts for his sponsored programmes, including one he presented on Saturday nights at 11pm, sponsored by Urney Chocolates. The advertising agency involved also asked me to come up with a proposal for a new lunchtime programme. <\/p>\n With help from a colleague, we did so, and the sponsor agreed to the new format, but only if we got Gay Byrne<\/a> to present. So, at 19 years of age, I rang Gay and offered him the programme. He accepted, and I worked with him for many years after, producing many of his sponsored programmes. <\/p>\n I had met him earlier, when I responded to a TV ad looking for an audience for a new talkshow that night, July 6th, 1962. So, at 16 years of age, I was at the first Late Late Show and got Gay\u2019s autograph. Some years later I recommended he use To Whom It Concerns as its theme tune. In 2019, the last programme I presented for RT\u00c9 Radio 1 was a tribute to Gaybo, my pal and colleague.<\/p>\n![\"Radio](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/KDV3L6FZUVGZ7PIEZ24CJ3O33M.jpg\")
Radio \u00c9ireann: the station came into its own with \u00c9amon de Valera\u2019s reply to Winston Churchill about Ireland\u2019s neutrality. Photograph: Haywood Magee\/Picture Post\/Hulton\/Getty <\/p>\n![\"Radio](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/QZXOOL2IZVECXKPJ3QY7FCFJOI.jpg\")
Radio \u00c9ireann: Gay Byrne in Studio 5 in 1963. Photograph: RT\u00c9 <\/p>\n
![\"Radio](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/4F2CTLLNBJG2ZPWG4RFHN7IT5E.jpg\")
Radio \u00c9ireann: chief announcer Terry Wogan. Photograph: RT\u00c9 <\/p>\n