If you think your family is unhappy . . .

RADIO REVIEW:CHRISTMAS MAY no longer revolve around the Church, but for some there is still an oppressive institution at the heart of the Yuletide celebrations.

The notion that Christmas is all about family does not fill everybody with festive cheer, as Ryan Tubridy last week acknowledged. On Tuesday’s edition of

Tubridy (

2FM, weekdays) the presenter spoke to a psychotherapist, Emma Murphy, about the stress of spending this time of year with relatives. The holiday period was a magnifying glass for pain as well as happiness, said Tubridy: the family Christmas was an “unusual construct”, as disparate individuals struggled to present a united jolly front.

His guest offered tips on coping with difficult family members, whom she grouped into three neat categories: the martyr, the passive-aggressive person and the bossyboots. Some practical hints for divorced families aside, the advice was as airy as the archetypes: Murphy recommended building a mental pyramid around oneself against particularly recalcitrant relatives – but it was a telling segment nonetheless. As religious belief has waned, so seasonal messages of healing are now delivered by counsellors from “wellness centres”.

Tubridy has his traditional side as well, however. On Monday, as he surveyed newspaper reports on the inquest into Gerry Ryan's death, Tubridy invoked an old expression. Speaking of the "unsolicited burden" such coverage imposed on the late broadcaster's family, Tubridy urged people to let Ryan "rest in peace". It was a vain appeal, even within Montrose. By Monday lunchtime the subject had surfaced on News at One(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), as the music journalist Joe Jackson defended his decision to print 16-year-old stories of Ryan's alleged cocaine use in a Sunday newspaper.

Jackson said his father had died in “similar circumstances”, so he “probably better” understood the pain of Ryan’s family than many other journalists. He stated it was an “open secret” to many in RTÉ that Ryan continued to use cocaine and wondered whether he could have done more to help, even though he was not a close friend. He started to name RTÉ figures “who have chosen to remain silent” on the matter, only for Seán O’Rourke to cut him short, saying he could not assume “anyone knew anything”. The more Jackson rationalised his decision – such as hoping his revelations might save one young life from the “white death” of cocaine – the more self-serving his explanations sounded.

Others sought to draw broader lessons from Ryan's death. On his panel show Coleman at Large(Newstalk, Tuesday and Wednesday), Marc Coleman asked if it was fair that a blind eye may have been turned on the alleged use of cocaine by "high-profile individuals" in RTÉ while poor people were jailed for not paying their licence fees. But amid the lofty editorialising – "Does a broadcast media that tolerates this double standard have any right to sit as judge and jury on society?" Coleman mused – the show came across as a conveniently timed hatchet job. The host bemoaned the lack of response from RTÉ to his queries about whether its internal policy on narcotic use squared with its anti-drugs editorial stance. When the NUJ official Seamus Dooley said that RTÉ was in an impossible position on such a loaded question, an irritated Coleman contrasted his invitation with the shows of Joe Duffy and even Ryan, which had "screwed people to the wall".

Overall, happy families were at a premium last week, and never more so than during Pat Kenny's interview with the Guinness heiress Ivana Lowell ( Today,RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays). Despite her privileged background, Lowell's upbringing was a catalogue of familial dysfunction. She was neglected by her eccentric mother, Caroline Blackwood, was sexually abused by her nanny's husband and discovered her biological father was not whom she thought. That her manic-depressive stepfather, the American poet Robert Lowell, was the rock in her life says it all. Yet the segment was oddly uplifting. Lowell dealt with her traumas calmly, eschewing self-pity and facing up to her failings, such as her alcoholism.

Despite the pressures of the festive season, her tale – as well as the tragic story of Gerry Ryan – was a reminder that family problems are all relative.

Radio moment of the week

Novelty songs are not normally the subject of public debate, but Liveline(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) managed to wring 45 minutes of airtime out of Horse Outside, the new single by The Rubberbandits, the Limerick comedy rap duo. The song, which trades in stereotypes of the city's underclass, is being mooted as a Christmas number one, a notion supported by local TD Willie O'Dea, who appeared on the show. But judging by the succession of outraged callers reprimanding O'Dea, few others in Limerick agree. The result was classic Liveline indignation, unintentionally comic proof that, even in times of national crisis, the parish pump is alive and well.

radioreview@irishtimes.com