Eamonn Andrews Studios was founded by broadcaster
Eamonn Andrews
Eamonn Andrews, (19 December 1922 – 5 November 1987) was an Irish radio and television presenter, employed primarily in the United Kingdom from the 1950s to the 1980s. From 1960 to 1964 he chaired the Radio Éireann Authority (now the RTÉ ...
, famous for being the presenter with the big red book of ''
This Is Your Life,'' a
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
television programme
A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed bet ...
. In the 1960s, the launch of television in
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
led him to become the
Chairman of the
RTÉ Authority. He set up a
media
Media may refer to:
Communication
* Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data
** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...
production company in Ireland, the Eamonn Andrews Studios, which ran a
dance hall
Dance hall in its general meaning is a hall for dancing. From the earliest years of the twentieth century until the early 1960s, the dance hall was the popular forerunner of the discothèque or nightclub. The majority of towns and cities in ...
called
The Television Club in
Harcourt Street in
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...
and took on the lease of the
Gaiety Theatre in Dublin.
Eamonn Andrews Studios were originally located at 40 Henry Street. In the 1960s the company bought the TV Club building on Harcourt Street. It was located directly opposite, what was then, the Old Harcourt Street Station. It housed two distinctly different studios. A radio studio which recorded sponsored programmes for Radio Éireann, and commercials, and a band studio down stairs. It used the dance hall during the day to record all the main bands of the Showband era. At nighttime, the bands were showcased live on stage in what the company called ''The Mecca of Irish Nightlife''.
The company bought number 45, the adjoining Georgian Building, and moved the band recording operation to the 2nd floor. The studio was equipped with a 1-inch, 8-track Ampex recorder, and mastered down onto a Studer quarter-inch machine. It boasted Fairchild limiters, Dolby noise reduction, JBL Monitors, and the second mixing desk ever made by Neve. Mics were Neuman U87, and AKG. It also had a Bechstein grand piano, and a mini-Moog synthesiser. It was Ireland's first multitrack studio. The band studio burned down in the late 1970s, and never reopened in the face of the stiff competition that had arisen in Dublin.
Some bands, notably
U2, used the small radio studio to record demos for some time afterwards.
The company directors were Fred O'Donovan, Dermot Cafferky, Lorcan Burke, and Eamonn Andrews. General manager was Tom Walsh. Studio manager was Jimmy Potter. Notable Sound Engineers across both studios were Darby Carroll, Conor O'Loughlin, Pat Morley, Philip Begley, Brian Masterson, Finín O Ceallachain, Trevor Clynch, and David Freeley, Dave Meegan
References
Television production companies of Ireland
{{Media-company-stub