Long before the advent of the tape recorder, if you wanted to record a speech or music you had to record it onto disc. These discs where known as transcription discs.

During a visit to the United States, member of the Irish Parliament (TD), Senator Frank MacDermot addressed the American people on the subject "Ireland and the War" via CBS radio station WABC. It should be noted that
throughout the Second World War, Ireland was officially neutral. Transcribed by Audio-Scriptions Inc. a recording of this broadcast was given to the Senator on two 12 inch aluminium discs (see opposite).

These discs made of metal coated aluminium, were found recently by the Senator's son, Mr Brian MacDermot in his garage whilst searching for documents to help an academic with the preparation of a biography of his late father.

Mr MacDermot sent the discs to Precious Voices not knowing given the condition of the discs whether any sound would be recoverable. Happyily we were able to report that there was, infact we were able to recover not only the of the Senator's speech, but also station and network identifications too.

Click here for a brief online biography of Senator MacDermot on the Politics.ie website