RedFM's Keith Cunningham on pirate radio and family values
DEATH threats didn’t deter him and nor did long hours in a freezing phone-box, because from the age of 13, Keith Cunningham knew radio was his future.
It all started back in the early 90s, in a garden shed outside Castlebar.
“There was a hugely popular pirate station which was broadcasting out of a little garden shed. It was called Kiss FM,” he recalls.
The station had been set up by a 17-year-old scout leader called Tony Gallagher — Cunningham was in the scouts and knew Gallagher vaguely, but was uncertain whether the mysterious and dashing radio presenter was Tony from scouts.
The station, which broadcast most nights from 9pm to midnight, was the biggest thing going for teenagers in Cunningham’s native Castlebar at the time.
“It was the local teenage disco on radio,” he quips.
The whole town was talking about — and listening to — Kiss FM and as a star-struck 13-year-old, Cunningham made it his mission to track down the top-secret station.
“I rang up Tony Gallagher’s mother when I knew he was in the studio. His mother innocently said he was in his friend’s house at Kilkenny Cross — which more or less told me the location of the radio station!
“I cycled to Kilkenny Cross and looked at all the houses until I could see the transmission aerial.”
He was soon spotted by the young pirates.
“They took me into the shed and told me that if I told anyone where the station was, they’d have me killed. Then they sat me down and gave me a job.”
This entailed cycling to the local phone box and taking down the requests phoned in by listeners. “The phone box number was the one the pirate station was giving out because it had to be secret.
“Occasionally I’d have to vacate the booth because an elderly lady might want to ring her sister in Knock.
“It was all totally illegal which made it even more exciting — but they got so big the station was eventually shut down.”
Years later, after graduating from the Ballyfermot Senior College Radio Broadcasting and Journalism course, Cunningham set up his own radio station.
“A professionally-run pirate station by a college graduate,” he recalls.
“It was called Power FM. We broadcast 24 hours a day. Our poster was a picture of the Virgin Mary wearing a pair of headphones and the slogan was “Power FM — The Immaculate Reception”.
This led to protests from the more religious-minded members of the community, but crucially to a job — first as a broadcast engineer with Mid-West Radio and later with Galway Bay FM as presenter of its breakfast show and, later, an evening show.
Then a weekend breakfast stint with FM104 led to a job with Cork’s RedFM, where Cunningham presented Drivetime and later the Breakfast Show, before landing a dream job as presenter of The KC Show with Today FM in 2010. It was a major fillip and, together with his girlfriend, now his fiancée, Corkwoman Rachel O’Leary (they plan to marry next year), Cunningham moved to Dublin.
This was what he’d been working towards all his life.
Rachel, a Montessori teacher, was pregnant at the time with their first daughter, Robyn, now aged three.
The new job — his show initially ran from 10pm to 1am — was great, he recalls, and Rachel quickly found a job.
She missed her family, however, and he really missed his pals in Cork, so they never really settled.
Every weekend they travelled south, and in the meantime kept moving house — funnily enough, he says, to apartments and houses located further and further down the Dublin-Cork road.
“We were going to Cork every weekend just to see the family.
“As time went on it was getting and harder and harder to go back to Dublin on the Sunday night — it was the Glenroe feeling.”
And life with a new baby and no family nearby could be tough going.
“I was minding Robyn until 6pm or 7pm in the evening when Rachel would come back from work and I’d hand over Robyn and leave for work myself — we were like passing ships.”
Eventually, they had to admit it wasn’t working.
Keith loved the job but he was getting tired from the combination of late nights at work and early morning starts with Robyn.
“We also wanted to buy a house, but houses in Dublin were a phenomenal price, even though the crash had happened.
“A friend of mine bought a house in Ranelagh — for his money he could have bought a castle in Kildare.”
In early 2012 they decided that the family would return to live in Cork and that Keith would commute.
That April they moved to Cork and rented a house in Crosshaven. Cunningham started the weekly commute to Dublin.
It was a wrench. “I missed all of the stuff with Robyn, the things she was seeing and doing. I was leaving on a Monday and coming back on a Friday; she was about one and a half and growing quickly.”
After baby Fia Lily came along in May 2013 he felt the loss even more strongly.
“I’d Facetime on the phone two or three times a day — it’s amazing technology for people who are away from their family. But it makes you realise what you’re missing.”
Then, last January RedFM suggested he come back as programme director and presenter of the KC Breakfast Show from 6am to 9am.
It was just what he wanted. “This was a progression into management which I wanted to go into on a full-time basis anyway.”
And from the family perspective it was perfect. “I know I got very lucky quite quickly and I’m absolutely delighted to be home.
“The plan is for us to settle in Crosshaven, rear the family and provide! I’m happy to play dolls-houses with the girls!
“I’m lucky enough to do what I do in Cork, and make a living here. It’s the second-biggest radio market in Ireland and not as cluttered in Dublin.
“When you settle and feel comfortable you feel safe, and you know your family will be safe. Here the kids are surrounded by lovely families with young children.”
It’s a big deviation from that sought-after trajectory from pirate station to national radio, but Cunningham is happy.
He’s got his priorities sorted, and family must come first, he says.
“Some people are saying that I’ve walked away from a national station to come back to a regional station, and they might perceive that as a demotion.
“But when you balance it up, work is only work.
“It’s a job and for me the main priority was to get home, and I see Cork as home.
“We’re only seven minutes away from Myrtleville beach; we have a lovely village and ocean walks.”
He’s also regularly reminded of just how lucky he is.
“There’s a strong commuting community here in Crosshaven — dads who leave on a Monday morning to fly to England or Germany. They might be gone for two or three weeks at a time and the biggest topic of conversation for them is how great it’d be to be at home.”
Things have started falling into place for Rachel too.
Just a few weeks ago she opened Orchard Childcare in Douglas with her childhood friend Sinead O’Connell.
“Children only grow up once, and I feel I’ve missed enough as it is,” he says.
“You don’t really want to look back in 20 years and say you were in Dublin, away from the family, while they grew up without ever really having their dad around.
“They’ll get into a pattern where the man is not there all the time; you’re not part of their lives. You drift in and out — you’re only part of part of their lives.
“When I was in Dublin you’d be questioning realistically how long you could keep going up and down and if the job would cost you your family because one or the other has to give.
“It all came together at the right time. I’ve been lucky like that in my life.
“Things have popped up at the right times. I’ve always believed that if you find yourself in a situation that you need to change, focus on what you need and it’ll lead to where you need to go,” he adds.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
