The Irish Legacy of .... NOT!

So here comes 'Scottg' as Troll in Chief who claims to know it all, and yet knows nothing, and he posts (on the GS Forum), a tribute link to Ronan O'Rahilly at the Irish Broadcasting Hall of Fame. We have seen this site before and we have previously ignored it at:
https://ibhof.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-irish-legacy-of-ronan-orahilly-and.html

That site is similar to the Offshore Radio Museum, in that it is promoting more rubbish about Ronan O'Rahilly and Radio Caroline. Both are unreliable sources of information.

However, this is what the Irish Broadcasting Hall of Fame has to say with corrections to errors highlighted in red:

"With the passing of Ronan O’Rahilly in April 2020, a colossus of radio broadcasting has left a legacy that will stand the test of time and has made a massive impression on radio broadcasting in Ireland." Ronan O'Rahilly left a legacy of deceit, and that is all. 

"While his beloved Radio Caroline was a familiar sight off the South East of England, its influence on both radio and music in 1960’s Britain cannot be underestimated." Ronan O'Rahilly did not start Radio Caroline and it took Radio London and then Radio 390 to influence radio and music in the 1960s. Radio Caroline South was basically a flop when compared to Radio London.

"It forced the British Government to enact new legislation outlawing the almost a dozen pirate radio ships that blasted pop music into Britain and it forced the BBC to reorganise and compete with the opening of a dedicated pop channel in 1967, BBC Radio One." Radio London and then Radio 390 forced that change on BBC Radio One and BBC Radio Two; not Radio Caroline, north or south.

"In the month when Ronan passed onto the afterlife, both BBC Radio One and Radio Caroline still broadcast today." BBC Radio One and BBC Radio Two still broadcast today. The station that calls itself Radio Caroline today, has no connection whatsoever to either Ronan O'Rahilly or Radio Caroline of the 1960s. Even the current so-called 'Radio Caroline' accredits Malcolm Smith who calls himself 'Peter Moore' with being the creator and owner of this station that calls itself 'Radio Caroline' in 2020.

"But while Caroline’s history focusses [sic] mainly on its influence on Britain, Ireland has played a key role in that colourful history and this is that story." This is true thanks to Charles Orr Stanley of Cork, Ireland and NOT to Ronan O'Rahilly. Charles Orr Stanley built the Pye Group of Companies.

"At the helm of Radio Caroline was Ronan O’Rahilly." As one MP noted, Ronan O'Rahilly was a 'decoy duck', but he was not at the helm of anything.

"He was born in Clondalkin, Dublin in 1940, his father Aodogan was a well-known and wealthy businessman, regarded as an influential ally of Eamon DeValera, while his grandfather Michael O’Rahilly was better known as The O’Rahilly, sacrificed his life during the 1916 Easter Rising having been shot dead while leading a charge on a British position at the end of Moore Street. Now this is where anorak radio fantasy feeds off of revisionist Irish history. 'The O'Rahilly' referred to was the second such person to go by that name. Ronan's uncle who was a neo-Nazi hoping that Adolph Hitler would defeat the United Kingdom, also used that term. He was the third person to do so. But as to the reference regarding the 1916 'Rising', well, the facts reveal that Michael tried his best to stop it from taking place, and then, like a curious cat, got shot when he went along to see what happened next!

"While still a teenager Ronan left Dublin and made his way to the centre of the new music industry, London’s club scene." Ronan O'Rahilly was born in 1940 and arrived in London during 1961, or so everyone claims. That would make Ronan O'Rahilly a young man of 21, and not a teen.

"In Soho, the young Ronan began to manage a music club and saw some of the up and coming artists including the Kinks and the Animals make their first steps into the limelight.  Despite managing several pop acts one of his favourite was Georgie Fame. He recorded a Georgie Fame record on his own independent label, unheard of at the time." However, Georgie Fame was getting gigs; a club owner recorded him and EMI released an LP featuring him, long before Radio Caroline came on the air! Ronan O'Rahilly's introduction to the club world was as a stand-in and decoy for people like Peter Rachman, the slum landlord. 

"He took the record to the BBC to try to get it played. He discovered that the record industry was dominated by EMI and Decca. He then tried to get it played on Radio Luxembourg, the Great 208, who were the commercial pop station most listened to in England at the time and O’Rahilly discovered closed doors and that the shows were 'owned' by labels like EMI, Pye and Decca. They were essentially 'payola' shows and featured only music from the paying label. He said, 'I have recorded the guy, so I can't get it played, so we have to start a radio station.' This is part of the totally fake propaganda mouthed by Ronan O'Rahilly which is totally untrue.

"The ship was originally a Baltic ferry the MV Frederica [sic] built in 1929 and purchased by Ronan O’Rahilly for the reported £20,000." This is nonsense which even the propaganda denies because the buyer was a shipping company and not a person, and a shipping company is not a person.

"It was taken to the port of Greenore in early 1964 to be converted into a radio station including a 180-foot aerial and renamed the MV Caroline. He chose the port of Greenore as it was at the time privately owned by his father Aodogan O'Rahilly who died in 2000. This is more nonsense of the same kind. Aodogan O'Rahilly did not own the Port of Greenore! Not only that, but evidence points to the ship's original destination being East Cowes on the Isle of Wight!

"A parent company was registered in Ireland to operate Radio Caroline in 1964. The company Planet Production Limited [sic] was dissolved in 1981. A second company was registered to sell advertising for the ship with Planet Sales Limited also registered companies in Ireland." Nothing could be further from the truth! Planet Productions Limited was registered in Ireland on February 27, 1964. It was not the parent of anything. It was a sales company. No such company as Planet Sales Limited was registered, and this fact got Ronan O'Rahilly into trouble with the British Board of Trade during its February 1965 investigation into who or what was behind Radio Caroline. It was NOT Ronan O'Rahilly!

This level of nonsense reporting which is championed by a know-nothing troll who calls himself 'Scottg', is one reason why we are microscopically taking apart all of the lies, rumors and total and utter rubbish that has been published and republished about Radio Caroline for decades.

To set the record straight:

Radio Caroline officially died on August 14, 1967 and it whimpered to its end, on March 3, 1968, when Radio Caroline was silenced for good, and its original ship was then taken to the scrapyard where it was broken up.