Ralph McGarry

Sean and Paul set up the station in March 1995 and brought me on board to help run it along with Aidan Power. I presented a Sunday night Ambient and Electronica show called UltraSouth until 1997. I really enjoyed this show and it helped me, and hopefully others, to rewind as the weekend came to a close. I went off to work on securing a licence for a local community station, reluctantly leaving behind the crew in the shed who developed a powerhouse within the youth radio scene in Dublin. I returned to Freedom 92FM in 2001 and presented a Monday evening pop music show – just like now – until we came off FM in 2003. I set up a number of temporary licensed youth based radio stations in west Wicklow, Kildare and south west Dublin during the noughties, consulted on the set up of a temporary arts based station in Cork in 2007, and rounded off the decade with assisting two good Freedom 92FM buddies with establishing The 90s Network, as a temporary licensed station focusing on the music of the 90s. I had the privilege to work as a sound recordist for a radio documentary for Newstalk on the topic of FGM in the Rift Valley in Kenya in 2014 and then set about establishing a Country Music station online. When lockdown came around Sean and Paul came calling again and asked me to get involved with reviving Freedom 92FM online. It was like 1995 all over again. I jumped at the chance! And as they say, the rest is history. I currently present a pop music programme on Monday between 6pm and 8pm UK/IRL time where I play the best in music from the 90s and noughties. I also present Drift, an eclectic mix of ambient, electronica and chilled beats each Sunday morning from 6am UK/IRL. Drift is like UltraSouth from the 90s, but broadcasts much earlier in the day. Drift is also available on the Freedom FM podcast service, and where ever you get your podcasts. When you think of it, its amazing that after 28 years, some things change and some things don’t. Of course, one of things that hasn’t changed is my age, I’m still only 21 years old!