Radio Limerick One

The station started broadcasting in October 1989 from studios in Dooradoyle, Limerick. In its early days, the station had separate radio shows covering about 20 different topics.^{[citation needed]}

Around 1992, the station rebranded itself as "Limerick 95FM" and moved to 100 O'Connell St. in the centre of Limerick city. Changes in ownership occurred through the years as well. During this period, the station became among the first Irish radio stations to transmit via satellite^{[citation needed]} - a service called "Ireland's Overnight Network", allowing other stations to air its generic overnight content in order to operate 24 hours a day without relying on automated playlists.^{[citation needed]}

Limerick 95FM also had a sister station for a time called Irish Satellite Radio broadcast via Astra 1B on frequency 11538 V. The station was on the VH1 TV channel transponder using the analogue transmission system known as Panda. It featured a different schedule, programs and news than the Local variant but at times would simulcast with Limerick 95FM for special events.^{[citation needed]}

ISR was available to listeners around the world including ex-pats who enjoyed^{[according to whom?]} listening to another Irish radio station, an alternative to RTÉ Radio 1, which also broadcast from the same transponder.^{[citation needed]}

Both the UK and Germany in particular^{[original research?]} tuned into Astra 1 transmissions due to their respective countries subscription TV packages emanating from the bird.^{[clarification needed]} Thus Irish satellite radio picked up a large audience from subscribers to the Sky UK service or indeed people who had installed free-to-air satellite equipment.^{[citation needed]} Several satellite TV listings magazines including Satellite Times and What Satellite TV listed the stations program schedule every month.^{[citation needed]}

In controversial circumstances which would see court actions continuing into the next century, the station lost its licence in February 1996. However, it continued broadcasting through its UK legal licence on satellite; this was deflected by unknown community groups back on to the FM broadcast band. Its satellite licence was removed^[1] in 1999 by the Radio Authority in the UK (who had issued it) due to intervention by the then IRTC in Ireland; it was now also broadcasting on the internet worldwide and this source was now deflected again providing a continuous FM broadcast until the Comreg clamp-downs on pirate broadcasting in the early 2000s, and had continued rebroadcasting after many raids.^{[citation needed]}

During the pirate years, Radio Limerick One continued to operate as it did when it was a licensed station.^{[citation needed]} News bulletins were broadcast hourly with night time reports from UK commercial service IRN.^{[citation needed]} Local obituaries were also read several times a day by the on-air presenter. RLO also had a dedicated sports team and local Gaelic Athletic Association matches were broadcast during season on Sundays using professional outside broadcast equipment where permitted.^{[citation needed]} The station had a full schedule of programming from 7am-1am.^{[citation needed]}

In the morning, the breakfast show featured a mix of classic hits, news, weather and travel reports and chat.^{[citation needed]} This was followed in the afternoon with a lean towards Oldies/M.O.R/Country music.^{[citation needed]} Drive-time and evenings featured a 60s/70s/80s music mix over the years.^{[citation needed]} The night time hours of RLO typically featured chat shows, including a "Late and Live" phone in program which features had little or no telephone screening process - meaning almost anyone could get on the air.^{[citation needed]} This led to some controversial incidents over the years and the show was known for its "anything goes" approach.^{[citation needed]}

During overnight hours non-stop classic hits were played and in the latter years the "Late and Live" program would be repeated throughout the night.^{[citation needed]}

In 2002, it applied for, was refused, and appealed to no effect a licence to operate a medium wave service in the city of Limerick. The licence was won by a group chaired by Joe Harrington, a former RLO presenter, which never went on air.^{[citation needed]}

During its period as a pirate, much use has been made of the Radio Data System to provide politically loaded messages to users with suitable equipment,^{[citation needed]} ranging from "NO RLO NO VOTE" during a protest at the 2002 Irish General Election to "HELP RLO STOP BCI SLEEZE", a message of such length as to require scrolling. This only provoked more raids and court cases.^{[citation needed]}

By late 2005, the station was under the management of Gerry Hannan who also resumed his late night talk show. The studio was moved to his local book shop.^{[citation needed]}

After a Comreg raid on 13 December 2006, the station never returned. The engineers and 'community groups' later worked on other projects.^{[citation needed]} Current^[when?] owner Gerry Hannan announced he intended to go the legal route of IP broadcasting online.^[2] This involved broadcasting by web. However, the service was short lived and RLO has remained off air since.^{[citation needed]}