Radio — Connection 
     
     to the Outside World 
     
    
   
   
    
     Throughout the forties and early 
     
     fifties, radio was the source of greatest 
     
     entertainment. My earliest recollection 
     
     of radio was listening to a second-hand 
     
     set brought home to my grandfather 
     
     John Martin Kearney’s house by “the 
     
     Yankees” on one of their annual 
     
     pilgrimages to the Island. This happened 
     
     during the Second World War, when it 
     
     was illegal to operate a radio receiver 
     
     without the federal government’s Radio 
     
     Receiver Operating license. 
     
    

    
     The battery-operated unit required a 
     
     wire antenna that ran a hundred or more 
     
     feet from the house to the barn or other 
     
     out-building, or to a tall pole in the yard. 
     
     The antenna improved reception, but