IF the knob were to tab off of my radio, I think I'd like to be stuck on Raidio na Gaeltachta.
On the face of it, this appears a bit rash. After all, if one is to be stuck on a desert island (or a banana republic) with a knobless" radio, might not one be better off with BBC Radio 4, or the World Service? Yes, but no. Yes, the BBC represents the best English language radio in the world, but Raidio na Gaeltachta is the best Irish language radio in the world. For an Irishman or Irishwoman, with or without Irish, that makes it more essential listening.
I've been working slowly and painfully at trying to resuscitate" and improve on my basic Inter Cert Irish for nearly a year now, and am making just about enough progress to stop me from kicking the radio through the window. My current comprehension rate is about 60 to 70 per cent. Sometimes I cheat a little and listen to the news in, English on RTE, first thing in the morning, giving myself a headstart with the priomhscealta. Until I started to write this column, a month ago, I had listened to little or no English language radio far the past year.
Raidio na Gaeltachta is more of a place to go than a station to listen to. As with all things, I like individual programmes and presenters more than others, but I'm not sure this is the point.
I still get confused, especially when they alter the schedule or presenters, which they do all the time. I've been setting my alarm for 8 a.m. every Saturday and Sunday mornings all year, so as not to miss Aine Hensey's, Beal Maidine, the best music programme on Irish radio. Aine is on holiday at the moment, along with half the country.
Cynthia Ni Mhurchu used to be on on Saturdays, with Seo Beo an tSathairn, a kind of Saturday View and Sunday Show rolled into one, and more consistent than either. For the summer she's on weekdays as well, with Cynthia Sa gCathaoir, which could be the best show in town when they've finished lobotomising Radio One.
One could join in the arguments about whether Raidio na Gaeltachta achieves the right balance between its community role and its responsibility to the wider and growing population with an interest in the Irish language. But, as someone who belongs to the latter category, I find that the appeal of RnaG goes beyond the content of its programmes. It is not simply a source of information or entertainment, a fount of knowledge and inspiration.
Raidio na Gaeltachta allows me to listen to the radio and feel less rather than more alone. It is genuinely good company. It has none of the poison, sensationalism, whining or exploitation that increasingly infect the Irish media. It is perhaps the last vestige of an Ireland that is no longer visible, in which it is still possible to speak with grace, gentleness and intelligence and to have fun without it being at someone's expense. I don't mean this Ireland no longer exists - simply that it is no longer visible. Nor do I mean that RnaG is old fashioned. On the contrary. If not the slickest radio station in the country, it is, in its own idiosyncratic way, the most vibrant and energising.
Raidio na Gaeltachta has come under attack for its supposedly antiquated ban on English language music. It is daft, the critics say, in the course of a programme you can hear records in 10 languages, but not in English. In a certain light, this seems to make sense. Last week, for example, I spent a whole minute thinking that the ban must have been lifted, as I drove along listening to Abba's Dancing Queen. Then I realised it was in Swedish. This may appear somewhat absurd, but I can see the difficulty in avoiding such absurdities. The argument goes that English language music would help to expand the station's audience among young people, but such a move would require some pretty rigorous and precise thinking about how the boundary was to be re-set. To perceive the issue in the context of Gaelic purity from anglicising influences is, I think, to miss the point. The ban not on English language recordings per se, but on recordings in the language of domination. The resistance is to the One Best Tongue of the One Best Way, the Anglo American patois in which our intelligence is being rewrittten to facilitate the final colonisation of our hearts and minds.
For this listener, Raidio na Gaeltachta is someplace to go. It allows for occasional internal exile, a place to escape from domination by the dictatorship of pseudo populism which threatens to engulf every positive aspect of Irish life. At the turn of a switch it is still possible to access an Ireland that is gentle and kind, voices that are true and unaffected, and music pure and sweet enough to drink. Imagine what it would be like if I could understand what they were saying.
