Poet, Critic & Journalist
Irish Independent, March 9, 2013 Is it just me or does anyone else think Dragon’s Den should have been buried along with the Celtic Tiger, on the mangy tail of which it initially rode? Maybe, as presenter Richard Curran argued at the outset of the show’s fifth season on RTE1, now is the time “when new businesses […]
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It was the decade in which there were more programmes than ever to watch, though just as few worth watching. Indeed, more invariably means less, and so when the very finite number of good programmes capable of being made are spread over 187 channels, they hardly register amid the gunge that surrounds them. There’s only […]
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Every cloud has a silver lining. Yes, over 130,000 people have been forced to seek work outside Ireland within two years, and, yes, more than 280,000 jobs have evaporated since the recession began, and, as if that’s not bad enough, a third of recently-polled young Irish adults have declared their intention to emigrate in 2011, […]
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Having written last Saturday about the programmes I had most admired in the past twelve months, it was with some degree of interest that I tuned into Ireland’s Top TV Moments, a compilation of what 3e deemed to be the most riveting television occasions of 2010. Puzzlingly, nothing that I had singled out featured in […]
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THOSE of us who’ve managed to get through our lives without listening to RTE 2fm — certainly not in the evening and hardly ever in the morning, even when Gerry Ryan was in situ — will be bidding adieu to Ryan Tubridy later in the summer when he moves from his 9am Radio 1 slot […]
Alan O’Brien’s tirade from the audience on last Monday’s edition of The Frontline (RTE1) was an outburst waiting to happen, and I’m only surprised such an expression of fury at the salaries of top broadcasters hadn’t occurred sooner – on Pat Kenny’s morning radio programme, say, or the Marian Finucane Show or Joe Duffy’s Liveline: […]
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Announcing RTE’s autumn and winter schedule a few weeks ago, the station’s new director of programming Steve Carson promised us shows that would “innovate and entertain, inform and initiate,” while his superior Noel Curran vowed that our viewing experience would be enriched by “quality Irish programmes.” Alas, the road to hell is paved with the […]
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In July last year, just as the country was heading into economic meltdown, RTE chose to rebroadcast a programme it had first screened the previous winter. Presented by Craig Doyle, it was called Ireland’s Top Earners and I wrote at the time that “with spectacular disregard for the sensitivities of the down-trodden public, this 100-minute […]
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I learned a lot from watching The Seahorseman (RTE1). I learned, for instance, that the female seahorse has a penis and that the male is the one who gets pregnant, which presumably means that the male is actually the female, and vice versa, though the filmmakers chose not to enlighten me on that. But I […]
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On these balmy summer evenings, when God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world, there’s nothing that boosts one’s sense of euphoria quite like a a barrage of programmes about bombings. TV3 was first up, with Sunday night’s A Bloody Friday: The Dublin-Monaghan Bombings, RTE continuing the theme on Tuesday with the first […]
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With Fine Gael busily devouring itself in the manner of one of Goya’s more nightmarish visions, I summoned up memories of A Family at War, that hugely entertaining RTE documentary series from a couple of years back in which disgruntled party members gleefully disembowelled each other as they recalled various leadership heaves. This history of […]
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IT was just before kick-off in the England-USA game and on RTE2 Bill O’Herlihy wanted to know what Eamon Dunphy thought of Wayne Rooney. “A great player,” Eamon sagely pronounced before stepping up the praise a gear or two. “I think he’s magic. He is a great, great player. He could light up this World Cup.” And, as if that wasn’t enough: “He’s a nice kid.”
Halfway through Eurovision: The Contenders (RTE1), Marty Whelan stood beside an ancient cot at the Dublinia exhibition and announced “I’m going to have a lie-down in a second”.
Halfway through Eurovision: The Contenders (RTE1), Marty Whelan stood beside an ancient cot at the Dublinia exhibition and announced “I’m going to have a lie-down in a second.” I’d have dozed off, too, were it not for the surreal sight of Marty making lavish hand gestures and droning out drivel against the backdrop of our […]
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Ten European Parliament hopefuls were in the Questions and Answers studio to explain the role of MEPs in this time of unprecedented economic crisis. From Fine Gael’s Gay Mitchell I learned that the first duty of any self-respecting MEP was to “turn up” in parliament, from which vantage point he or she could then “network” […]
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Baz Ashmawy is RTE2’s intended answer to Louis Theroux, except that the BBC has never required its man to co-host a cringe-inducing reality contest. But then again, on those occasions when he’s not being smirkingly faux-naif, Theroux can come up with programmes of insight and substance, whereas Ashmawy was all too suited to the ghastly […]
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Bestselling thriller writer John Connolly is interviewed at length on Radio One’s evening arts show. A week later he’s the subject of an hour-long RTE1 Arts Lives profile. A few weeks after that, he’s one of the main interviewees on Ryan Tubridy’s Late Late Show.
Bestselling thriller writer John Connolly is interviewed at length on Radio One’s evening arts show. A week later he’s the subject of an hour-long RTE1 Arts Lives profile. A few weeks after that he’s one of the main interviewees on Ryan Tubridy’s Late Late Show. Meanwhile, pop impresario Louis Walsh is a guest on Brendan […]
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Midway through the Arts Lives documentary, Gilbert O’Sullivan: Out on His Own (RTE1), the singer-songwriter explained to his wife his stance regarding the promotion of his music and his image. “I’m not talking about myself,” he told her. “I’m talking about Gilbert O’Sullivan.”
Midway through the Arts Lives documentary, Gilbert O’Sullivan: Out on His Own (RTE1), the singer-songwriter explained to his wife his stance regarding the promotion of his music and his image. “I’m not talking about myself,” he told her. “I’m talking about Gilbert O’Sullivan.” The “myself” in question was Raymond Edward O’Sullivan, who was born in […]
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