Introduction
.The original focus of this investigation began with 'The World Tomorrow' broadcasts, without which the pop music 'pirate radio' stations of the Sixties would have never found airplay, because it was this sponsored and syndicated radio program which paid to make the music broadcasts possible. But beginning with the fake era of the so-called 'Swinging Sixties', one explanation after another centered upon Ronan O'Rahilly. He was a young man who arrived in London, England during 1961, from Dublin, Ireland.
In March 1964 when 'Radio Caroline' first took to the airwaves, Ronan O'Rahilly presented himself as a 'usefull fool' to a secretive group of people working with Charles Orr Stanley, Chairman of the Pye Group of Companies. Stanley's agenda was to force the U.K. Conservative government of the day to licence hundeds of independent radio statons so that the Pye Group could manufacture and sell 'packaged' radio stations to transmit, and more consumer radio sets to receive an increased selection of programming.
Stanley was not setting out to operate a radio station, but he had to remain secretive about his intentions because the Pye Group already had both military and licenced BBC and ITA stations under contract. Because the Conservative Party government was split on the issue of breaking the BBC monopoly of sound broadcasting, in the way that it had broken the BBC monopoly of television broadcasting, Stanley had to keep his 'Plan B' a secret.
'Plan A' was a continuation of his visible participation in the political Pressure Group that led to the creation of the Independent Television Authority (ITA), and its selling all airtime via franchises. All ITA programming and the responsibility to pay for it was transferred to Programming Contractors who were authorized to sell 'spot' advertising within their programmes in order to make a commercial profit.
While television viewers and newspapers came to refer to this alternative system as 'ITV', or Independent TeleVision, in reality there were only two licenced television stations: BBC and ITA. Both were under licence from the General Post Office which was a creation of the Crown corporation sole that dated back to the establishment of a new Kingdom of England in the year 1660. That was the year in which the former united republic formed by England, Scotland and Ireland, was overthrown by military might.
The United Kingdom in its present compilation was created in 1923 during a struggle to put any legal broadcasting station on the British airwaves. To understand British broadcasting laws, which are quite different from those governing broadcasting in the United States of America, it is necessary to know that the British Crown has evolved over time via series of political and military coupe d'etates that began in the year 1660.
By 1923, Parliament's House of Commons was operating under the authority of the Crown which percieved broadcasting to fall under the authority of the Crown's General Post Office (GPO). That entity was originally created in 1660 as means of censoring person-to-person or point-to-point communications. The jump from a one-to-one approach to a sweeping everyone everywhere (broadcasting) approach was a decisive foundational step in the process of imposing blanket censorship by law. In the USA its written Constitution of 1789 specifically forbids this kind of dictatorial control.
There were objections and there were many attempts to thwart British dictatorship to control mass communications. As we will relate in detail, the fight began with newspaper empire created by another Irishman name Alfred Harmsworth. His name became obfuscated by the title of Viscount Northcliffe, and the identity of his brother Harold was also smothered with title Viscount Rothermere. This seems to be a standard approach in the British Isles to obfuscate matters in such a way that trying to unravel the past becomes a complicated chore.
We will return to 1923 later on, but now we need to focus upon Charles Orr Stanley and his role in deliberately creating more confusion by indirectly employing the services of Ronan O'Rahilly. In passing at this point, because we will return to it later on, it is necessary to explain who Ronan O'Rahilly was. He is now deceased.
Ronan O'Rahilly is the son of an American mother who married in America an Englishman named Aodogan who was born on the southern coast at Hove. The couple crossed the Atlantic Ocean and set up home just outside of Dublin, Ireland. Ronan's father then began a manufacturing business making roof tiles and exporting them by a leased ship, to a port in northwest England near Liverpool. He was successful in business, and Aodogan expanded by purchasing a derilict railway teminal and adjoing dock area in a corner of southeast Ireland that adjoined the northen counties which were still part of the United Kingdom.
Aodran's idea was to level the old railway terminal which also included a hotel building, build a new factory and to get the Irish government to reopen its adjoing Port of Greenore and then replace a ship he was leasing with his own vessel so that he could expand his export business. But this is where he ran into a cash flow problem and so he dispatched his son Ronan to find additional investors. Meanwhile, Aodogan firmed-up his own relationships with various port authorities in different part of England.
Ronan arrived in England during 1961 with little in the way of cash but a lot of charm and the kind of manipulative verbal performance that is the stock-in-trade of a confidence trickster. In this way Ronan O'Rahilly soon found his way into the realm of Peter Rachman and his criminal associates, such as the soon-to-be infamous Kray Twins. These unsavory fast-money-merchants had already infiltrated London's clubland which catered to teens. At this time, the Beatles were on the doorstep of fame in America, but that event was still in the near future. In fact, all over the British Isles young people were forming bands and promoting their own imitations of American pop music.
While all of this was far from what Ronan's father had in mind, Ronan O'Rahilly soon came to the attention of the people working with Charles Orr Stanley whose business cartel was based in Cambridge, England. Since Ronan had an ego, together with enough cash to keep him happy, he became the idea candidate to act as a media front who deflect any serious enquiries away from C. O. , as everyone came to call him. Because what C.O. had in mind was a scheme that would play two sides against the middle in order to get the Postmaster General to issue licences to independent radio stations.
On the one hand a seriously overt and highly publicized pressure group had launched a campaign in the popular press, while on the other hand a secretive plan was being put into operation to make commercial pop radio broadcasting a fact, with or without permission of the Postmaster General. This seceond scenario is the one for which Ronan O'Rahilly was pushed in front of the cameras to inform the press that he was the managing director of 'Radio Caroline'. But there was just one little problem, and that was that no one had registered a company having directors that Ronan could then claim to be managing.
In one sense that missing piece in the puzzle was not a problem. The ship became real. The transmitters were real. The disc jockeys on board the ship were real and the sudden deluge of fan-based teen listeners became very real and very noisy. The emerging British bands loved it, even if the British Broadcasting Corporation said that it did not. In fact, the BBC then set about trying to discover just who was behind Ronan O'Rahilly and 'his' 'Radio Caroline'.
In March 1964 when 'Radio Caroline' first took to the airwaves, Ronan O'Rahilly presented himself as a 'usefull fool' to a secretive group of people working with Charles Orr Stanley, Chairman of the Pye Group of Companies. Stanley's agenda was to force the U.K. Conservative government of the day to licence hundeds of independent radio statons so that the Pye Group could manufacture and sell 'packaged' radio stations to transmit, and more consumer radio sets to receive an increased selection of programming.
Stanley was not setting out to operate a radio station, but he had to remain secretive about his intentions because the Pye Group already had both military and licenced BBC and ITA stations under contract. Because the Conservative Party government was split on the issue of breaking the BBC monopoly of sound broadcasting, in the way that it had broken the BBC monopoly of television broadcasting, Stanley had to keep his 'Plan B' a secret.
'Plan A' was a continuation of his visible participation in the political Pressure Group that led to the creation of the Independent Television Authority (ITA), and its selling all airtime via franchises. All ITA programming and the responsibility to pay for it was transferred to Programming Contractors who were authorized to sell 'spot' advertising within their programmes in order to make a commercial profit.
While television viewers and newspapers came to refer to this alternative system as 'ITV', or Independent TeleVision, in reality there were only two licenced television stations: BBC and ITA. Both were under licence from the General Post Office which was a creation of the Crown corporation sole that dated back to the establishment of a new Kingdom of England in the year 1660. That was the year in which the former united republic formed by England, Scotland and Ireland, was overthrown by military might.
The United Kingdom in its present compilation was created in 1923 during a struggle to put any legal broadcasting station on the British airwaves. To understand British broadcasting laws, which are quite different from those governing broadcasting in the United States of America, it is necessary to know that the British Crown has evolved over time via series of political and military coupe d'etates that began in the year 1660.
By 1923, Parliament's House of Commons was operating under the authority of the Crown which percieved broadcasting to fall under the authority of the Crown's General Post Office (GPO). That entity was originally created in 1660 as means of censoring person-to-person or point-to-point communications. The jump from a one-to-one approach to a sweeping everyone everywhere (broadcasting) approach was a decisive foundational step in the process of imposing blanket censorship by law. In the USA its written Constitution of 1789 specifically forbids this kind of dictatorial control.
There were objections and there were many attempts to thwart British dictatorship to control mass communications. As we will relate in detail, the fight began with newspaper empire created by another Irishman name Alfred Harmsworth. His name became obfuscated by the title of Viscount Northcliffe, and the identity of his brother Harold was also smothered with title Viscount Rothermere. This seems to be a standard approach in the British Isles to obfuscate matters in such a way that trying to unravel the past becomes a complicated chore.
We will return to 1923 later on, but now we need to focus upon Charles Orr Stanley and his role in deliberately creating more confusion by indirectly employing the services of Ronan O'Rahilly. In passing at this point, because we will return to it later on, it is necessary to explain who Ronan O'Rahilly was. He is now deceased.
Ronan O'Rahilly is the son of an American mother who married in America an Englishman named Aodogan who was born on the southern coast at Hove. The couple crossed the Atlantic Ocean and set up home just outside of Dublin, Ireland. Ronan's father then began a manufacturing business making roof tiles and exporting them by a leased ship, to a port in northwest England near Liverpool. He was successful in business, and Aodogan expanded by purchasing a derilict railway teminal and adjoing dock area in a corner of southeast Ireland that adjoined the northen counties which were still part of the United Kingdom.
Aodran's idea was to level the old railway terminal which also included a hotel building, build a new factory and to get the Irish government to reopen its adjoing Port of Greenore and then replace a ship he was leasing with his own vessel so that he could expand his export business. But this is where he ran into a cash flow problem and so he dispatched his son Ronan to find additional investors. Meanwhile, Aodogan firmed-up his own relationships with various port authorities in different part of England.
Ronan arrived in England during 1961 with little in the way of cash but a lot of charm and the kind of manipulative verbal performance that is the stock-in-trade of a confidence trickster. In this way Ronan O'Rahilly soon found his way into the realm of Peter Rachman and his criminal associates, such as the soon-to-be infamous Kray Twins. These unsavory fast-money-merchants had already infiltrated London's clubland which catered to teens. At this time, the Beatles were on the doorstep of fame in America, but that event was still in the near future. In fact, all over the British Isles young people were forming bands and promoting their own imitations of American pop music.
While all of this was far from what Ronan's father had in mind, Ronan O'Rahilly soon came to the attention of the people working with Charles Orr Stanley whose business cartel was based in Cambridge, England. Since Ronan had an ego, together with enough cash to keep him happy, he became the idea candidate to act as a media front who deflect any serious enquiries away from C. O. , as everyone came to call him. Because what C.O. had in mind was a scheme that would play two sides against the middle in order to get the Postmaster General to issue licences to independent radio stations.
On the one hand a seriously overt and highly publicized pressure group had launched a campaign in the popular press, while on the other hand a secretive plan was being put into operation to make commercial pop radio broadcasting a fact, with or without permission of the Postmaster General. This seceond scenario is the one for which Ronan O'Rahilly was pushed in front of the cameras to inform the press that he was the managing director of 'Radio Caroline'. But there was just one little problem, and that was that no one had registered a company having directors that Ronan could then claim to be managing.
In one sense that missing piece in the puzzle was not a problem. The ship became real. The transmitters were real. The disc jockeys on board the ship were real and the sudden deluge of fan-based teen listeners became very real and very noisy. The emerging British bands loved it, even if the British Broadcasting Corporation said that it did not. In fact, the BBC then set about trying to discover just who was behind Ronan O'Rahilly and 'his' 'Radio Caroline'.
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