1967 - August 14 ....

On this date back in 1967, the end came for 'Radio Caroline', whatever 'It' was, because "It' certainly had not been a company, nor had 'It' been a radio station in the traditional sense.

'It' had been a constantly changing myth that came to be surrounded by gangsters and lies, but 'It' had been portrayed to the world as innocence and frivolity.

That is how this story began, and that is how the life of 'It' ended when 6 Chesterfield Gardens in London, England was legally severed from the Dutch operation of two ships, one anchored off the Isle of Man and the other one anchored off the coastline of southeast England, and both had used the call sign of 'Radio Caroline'.

The new law brought the curtain down on the southern ship which had been owned by Texans, and that ship was now under the control of the Dutch tug and salvage company which maintained the vessel. However, one of the two UK disc jockeys who remained on board, tried to proclaim that the radio ship had become a international new venture.

'It' hadn't.

​'It' was now bobbing around without funding and without a purpose.

Off the Isle of Man, the other ship had been legally cut off from a former financial base in England, and the wealthy individuals who once had a purpose for the vessel, had resigned before the law came into effect. That is except for on man who was playing a game by waiting for the hammer to fall, but who had pre-paid for airtime to promote his record company venture that had ties to the 'Jewish Mafia' in New York. UK officials tried to pin him down but they did not succeed, and soon, there would be no point in trying after both ships were towed away after maritime debts went unpaid.

Some, who did not understand the legal relationship between the Isle of Man and the Crown corporation sole that rules the United Kingdom, caused a very brief bureaucratic delay by allowing a legal supply-based connection between the northern ship and the Isle of Man to remain in place. But that is all that this was, and one month later, the British Crown issued Order in Council that brought into force the same legislation of August 14, 1967 which had applied to the United Kingdom.

But the dreamer and schemer named Ronan O'Rahilly, the man who had been hired as a 'patsy' to divert attention from the people who originally created the venture now ended, well, he came to believe in his own lies and the fantasy stories. Some came to believe that he was a wonder-worker who had defied the British government and got away with it.

But Ronan O'Rahilly was out of his depth, and even his family in Ireland were not supporting his daydreams. In the end, after death, his fans managed to con the priest who staged Ronan O'Rahilly's memorial service to repeat a condensed version of the same lies that Ronan O'Rahilly had told about himself, but the priest did not write that script. The believers in mythology did.

Just a few months later on March 6, 1968, after the new law came into effect in both the UK and Isle of Man, two Dutch tugs came out from the Netherlands and towed both ships into port, and that was end of the 'Radio Caroline' fantasy. Nothing had been achieved because even the BBC took its blueprint for BBC Radio 1 from the Texan formatted offshore station called Radio London, and that station had closed down on August 14, 1967, just hours before the new law came into effect.

But the O'Rahilly mythology continued, and O'Rahilly was forced to turn repeatedly to the world of con men and gangsters in attempts to make his fantasy come alive. Others used his name and the name of 'Radio Caroline', but they had no connection to any venture that had gone before under that station call sign.

This Blog and our companion Blog are now stripping away the lies, and for the first time we are explaining what really happened after a ship began test broadcasting under the call sign of 'Radio Caroline' on Friday, March 27, 1964.

This Blog continues ....