Setting the stage: 1960-1963, part 1a ....

​This part of the Blog repeats text that originally appeared on 10/5/2020.

Now we are going to peer behind the scenes of those created news events regarding the creation of Radio Caroline in 1964. We will microscopically analyze what really did happen, and what everyone was led to believe had happened.

There is a difference: a big difference. One is real and one is fake

Yesterday, using his own spoken words, we documented how Allan James Crawford met with Ronan O'Rahilly in London during 1963 for the very first time. It led to another meeting in which Ronan O'Rahilly took Crawford to Clondalkin, Ireland, and that is where Crawford met Aodogán O'Rahilly, the father of Ronan O'Rahilly.

The year in which this initial meeting took place and the subsequent introduction of Allan James Crawford to Aodogán O'Rahilly, is 1963, and it is one key (but not the only key), that unlocks the mystery surrounding the creation of Radio Caroline.

In our prior editorial series about Greenore, we microscopically detailed how the dreams of Aodogán O'Rahilly were financed by Irish government backed loans for a business plan that failed. After being granted approval by the Irish government to reapply those same loans to a second business plan involving the reopening of the Port of Greenore, a trio of interests set about about creating a container ferry service to export Irish goods to the island of Great Britain.

This new plan which was announced to the public on Friday August 5. 1960, involved a partnership between Weatherwell Ltd., which was managed by Aodogán O'Rahilly; the Irish nationalized transportation group known by the initials CIE, who were working in conjunction with the British nationalized road haulage group known by the initials of RBS; plus a contractual relationship with the British firm of Mountwood Shipping Co. Ltd. of Liverpool who owned a small container motor vessel called 'Friendship'.

To kick-start this new plan the government-backed loans had been used to install a container crane at the water's edge, and Irish Custom had returned to their abandoned office to reopen the Port of Greenore. The first customer for this new Irish Ferry Container Traffic Service was Weatherwell Ltd., and the first export was made in 20 containers. But the idea was to use this announcement and Weatherwell Ltd participation to cause other Irish exporters to use this new service and cause the area around Greenore to prosper.

But on Saturday, January 26, 1963, as we previously reported in depth, only total failure was in sight. The Port of Greenore remained a transitory point of departure for exports made by Weatherwell Ltd.

Meanwhile, across the border in Northern Ireland at Larne on Friday, November 4, 1960, another Irishman from Cork in the Republic of Ireland had been complaining about the same issue that the announcement on Friday August 5. 1960, was supposed to cure with the creation of the new Irish Ferry Container Traffic Service. Charles Orr Stanley, unlike Aodogán O'Rahilly who was born on Sept 22, 1904, at Hove, near Brighton in England, had been born on April 15, 1899 at Cappoquin, County Waterford in Ireland.

Whereas Aodogán O'Rahilly managed a roofing tile company, Charles Orr Stanley managed factories belonging to the PYE Group of companies that operated both within the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland as well as on the island of Great Britain and many other subsidiaries in Australia, the USA and other nations of the world. The products produced by the PYE Group of companies reflected an impressive list of consumer; industrial and military contracts reaching back before World War II.

As we previously noted many times in earlier editions of this Blog, Charles Orr Stanley and his son John Stanley were the ultra-secret movers and shakers behind the creation of Radio Caroline. But because of the PYE government contracts, the PYE involvement in Radio Caroline had to be kept quiet. PYE had no interest in running and operating stations, it was in the business of selling "packaged" radio and television stations to any operator, anywhere in the world who wanted to start a broadcasting station.

A revised version of Setting the stage: 1960-1963, part 1 will follow the text above as Part 1b ....