There is a mythic quality to Pat Herbert. When Tom Dunne and the team arrive in Howth on a sunny and blustery March afternoon, Herbert warmly welcomes us to the Martello Tower. He is surrounded, floor to ceiling, by vintage radios, valves, crystal set pieces and countless gramophones. To step into the Hurdy Gurdy Museum of Vintage Radio is to take a leap into the very foundations of recorded sound, broadcasting and music.
Herbert, who has been collecting these items for decades, reminisced about going to his neighbour’s house in the west of Ireland in 1947, specifically because they owned a radio. Together they poured over the machine to listen to the All-Ireland, which was being broadcast from the polo grounds in New York City, the first and only time the All-Ireland was played outside of Ireland.
This was a time when the entire country was in darkness at night time. But Herbert remembers this day as being the first time he had witnessed artificial light - the bulbs and valves of the wireless lit up the kitchen.
“The commentary came in from America and I just couldn’t visualise how this was happening because the nearest wires were three miles away in a place called Crossmolina (Co. Mayo)”, he said.
Herbert explained how he first started his collection. When he arrived in London as a young man, he noticed that everyone was throwing out their old shellac 78 records, as vinyl was the new format.
“I thought to myself, ‘what a sin, what a sin’,” he said.
Growing up during the war in Ireland, 78 records were precious. Needles were rare to come by however. This meant that Herbert and his friends would improvise with nails, or even thorns, to play the records.
Towards the end of the visit, Herbert played some of his 78s on a 1934 ‘Picnic’ gramophone.
“With electrified machines you get a reduced sound...you get the natural sound off a 78 which you don’t get off a vinyl. But then, I’m old fashioned,” he said.
On the ‘34 gramophone, Herbert played two 78s: Elvis Presley’s ‘Hound Dog’ and a song by Tommy Samson and his Strongmen.
The Museum of Vintage Radio is based in the Martello Tower in Howth. It is open on Saturdays and Sundays, 11am-4pm.
