Pirate Predator: 01 - The Electrician

I was gonna write a book about one of the coolest underground things in Ireland at the time.

I was five years younger than you.

[upbeat music] Here's the point, sister.

It's called fire.

The pirate radio scene began back in the 1960s, when only one radio station was allowed broadcast in Ireland, Radio Éireann.

Radio Éireann.

Which was fine if you wanted to listen to news, poetry, or programs intended for, well, anyone over the age of 60, really.

So join him in an afternoon of airs and races.

Hi there.

But if you were young, like me, and wanted to listen to pop music or anything remotely cool or in fashion, you tuned into illegal radio stations.

This is Radio Caroline on 199, your all-day music station.

They played music that young people actually wanted to hear.

The first record is by The Rolling Stones, and I'd like to play-

And that is what led 19-year-old me to drive my Honda 50 to the door of the biggest pirate radio station in Ireland.

[upbeat music] Better music, k-k-k-music.

Radio Dublin.

Radio Dublin.

And the man who ran that station was Eamon Cooke, a shabby little man who smelled of the Rothmans cigarettes he constantly smoked.

The trail was blazed by Radio Dublin, run by Eamon Cooke from a terraced house in Inchicore.

Eamon Cooke was one of the original pirates.

Now he's up the mast again with his eye on a prize.

Back then, he was revered by many as a kind of folk cult hero, the radio rebel.

In the meantime, by continuing to broadcast, he's facing the possibility of fines of up to 20,000 pounds and/or two years in prison.

But there was a darkness behind Cooke, or Captain Cooke, as he liked to be called.

So that all the little secrets in my past are no longer a secret.