A PREPARATION FOR DEATH.

By Greg Baxter. Penguin Ireland, 14.99 sterling At the outset of this book, the narrator finds himself surrounded by the naked calves of women as he retrieves some dropped change in a Dame Street shop. “I wanted to lick them,” he says of these calves. “I often feel one drink away from whatever makes a […]

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The PDs; The Limits of Liberty…

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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A MOVEABLE FEAST: The Restored Edition

Long before I ever set foot in Paris, Ernest Hemingway’s memoir of his life there in the 1920s had begun my love affair with the French capital. Published in 1964, three years after the author’s suicide, its loving evocation of a vanished time and a vibrant place and its gossip about the writers and artists […]

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Hot air sends Dunphy to new heights

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.”

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THE HOLY THIEF. By William Ryan.

William Ryan is an Irish writer, though you’d never guess it from his outstanding debut novel, a thriller that’s set in mid-1930s Moscow at the onset of Stalin’s Great Terror. Formerly a barrister in London, where he still lives, Ryan took a Masters in creative writing five years ago at St Andrew’s University under the […]

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The night that Marty really spun my wheel

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”.

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Eurovision / Alzheimer’s

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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Joe Duffy

“You don’t hear the hanging and flogging brigade on Liveline,” Joe Duffy told a newspaper interviewer  a few months ago, “you don’t hear racist stuff.” That’s true. On this long-running interractive radio programme, which Duffy has now been hosting for more than ten years, there’s none of the rancid bigotry that you encounter on the […]

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RTE to air every World Cup game as sport takes over for summer

IT’S traditionally the season when RTE personalities take even longer holidays than TDs, but there’ll be no rest for Montrose’s sports department in the coming months.

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS / THE HOUSE / RYAN’S DAUGHTER

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’S EXTREME WORLDS/STEPHEN FRY/AFTERSHOCK

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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Gerry Ryan Hysteria

A man dies suddenly at the age of fifty-three. He is unknown to the wider community, but he has a wife and children, parents, siblings, friends, neighbours and work colleagues. A death notice appears in the newspapers and his removal and funeral service are attended by those who knew and loved him. We all attend such funerals, and others will be attending ours one day.

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Alan Sillitoe

From what I’ve read about Alan Sillitoe, who died recently, he seemed to be an admirable man as well as a fine writer – and far removed in basic values from some of today’s most celebrated authors, for whom rock-star fame and fortune appear to be as important as their supposed vocation. Certainly I can’t […]

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CITY OF LOST GIRLS. By Declan Hughes.

Seventy years after Raymond Chandler’s man of honour Philip Marlowe first ventured down the mean streets of Los Angeles, the private eye remains a staple of crime fiction. He’s an absurdly unrealistic figure, of course, and Declan Hughes acknowledges the fact in his fifth Ed Loy thriller. “The entire PI genre is basically preposterous boys’-own […]

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PATRICK MCCABE AND GEORGE ORWELL

In a recent newspaper column, author Patrick McCabe said he had spent much of the previous week reading George Orwell. “What baffles me,” he wrote, “is how prescient Orwell was”, and he instances “a great bit where he says everyone now is living the same kinds of lives.” This caused the Clones-born author to reflect […]

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All style but very little substance

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.

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Not just a voice, Gerry was daily friend to loyal listeners

It was his unforced empathy with the marginalised, the deprived and the dispossessed that ensured a more general and deeper esteem Gerry Ryan was the brash face of RTE. When Radio 2 was launched in 1979, the marketing catchphrase devised for the new station was “Cominatcha”, and although Ryan didn’t start his long-running morning show […]

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Nationwide; This is Nell McCafferty…

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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Piano man gilbert strikes a sour note

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.”

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GILBERT O’SULLIVAN / GROWING UP GAY / WELCOME TO LAGOS

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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