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A Radiowaves Special: From Cork's Eastside to the Sound of the South - The Inside Story of Radio ERI

This extract from 1984: A Holding Year of Partying and Sales Where We Knocked Out Our Competition

Joseph O'Connor writes:
I decided I needed a driver and hired Paul, an ex-Ranger Corps soldier. He now works in the South of France and has a huge security firm in Cannes. But the first day he turned up for work, he had a gun! I used to get a kick at being driven so I’d take the ERI crew to towns far away from Cork so we could be stopped by Garda checkpoints on the way back – don’t ask what the thinking was behind this!

One Saturday, Mike Hogan had come down from Dublin to Cork to meet me. Hungover, I sent Paul to meet him. Mike was understandably miffed that I didn’t turn up myself and when he heard I could only meet him in CoCos nightclub that evening, he was even more irked. That evening, at the nightclub, Mike was by then really pissed after I invited him upstairs to my booth. He sent word back he wouldn’t come and if I wanted to speak to him, to come down myself. Paul asked me, quite earnestly, if I wanted him to go down and give him a beating. This was in late summer 1984.

We had to lose Paul after he overheard me one night talking about how much we were owed from advertising debtors and he suggested he’d go and ‘collect’ the money!

He went to work for Dominic O Keefe in the Victoria Hotel and CoCos and they used to hang out with U2, who were close friends with Dominic.

There'll be another extract tomorrow but for now, today's recording comes from March 20th and again features Hugh Browne on Breakfast.
Click here to listen.

To follow the story of ERI from the start click here.
If you have anything you can contribute - photos, recordings, memories, anecdotes, memorabilia, corrections - please contact us at radioeri@radiowaves.fm.