Imagine a radio station that churned out a steady diet of traditional songs and melodies, John McCormack records, programmes in the Irish language, paeans to the preservation of Christian civilisation and "flashbacks" to historical moments of British perfidy. Some smart-alicky or overwrought liberals would no doubt brand such a relentlessly "national" and nationalist broadcaster as "fascist". And they'd be right. Because there was a station that fitted this description, and it wasn't Radio Eireann in Dev's prime; it was Nazi Germany's Irish service, which beamed wartime propaganda of this hue into Ireland. The Francis Stuart debate would have given us some idea of this service's existence, distinct from Lord Haw-Haw's English service; Stuart's weekly broadcast, Through Irish Eyes, was just a small part of what the service had to offer Ireland's listeners.
This column owes its hugely expanded knowledge about the service to Radio Kerry and, specifically, Dave O'Donoghue, whose documentary, Hitler's Irish Voices, was broadcast as a holiday special yesterday morning. Such an interesting subject deserves to be aired beyond the Kingdom, but fair play to them for making a start.
And while this programme might have told the story with a shade more clarity, it could hardly have done so with more dedication. O'Donoghue rounded up an astonishing array of interview subjects - including Stuart and Hans Hartmann, one of the service's directors, still alive in Germany - to jam-pack 45 minutes with information about the programming, the intention and the personalities behind the service.
Inevitably, the story has a certain absurdity. The service was the brainchild of Ludwig Mulhausen, a linguist, enthusiast for Irish culture and ardent Nazi. We heard about Mulhausen's 1937 sojourn in Donegal from Hugh Byrne - the fisherman who rented him a cottage - who recalled Mulhausen's hatred of Britain, venerated photo of Hitler and penchant for marching around the kitchen. Mulhausen had also been in Kerry, and had a peculiar love for photographing the country's coastline. However, the Irish service doesn't appear to have set out to soften up the Irish people for a German invasion. Instead, it was to boost neutrality.
German devotion to detail could be admired every St Patrick's Night, when the Berlin radio orchestra played the latest arrangements of Irish songs, and soloists from the state opera company sang in the Irish language with astonishing accuracy and sensitivity.
OF COURSE, if Hitler were trying to catch the ear of Ireland today, he'd programme his station with pop songs and football commentaries. Just to make a profit, you understand.
Sports on the radio is scarcely a new proposition for winning audiences, but competition for "radio rights" seems to be a growing thing. In Britain, where talk radio is alleged to be a Murdoch target (his eye is on its expanded potential in the digital era), that station is taking on BBC Radio 5 Live with football. Last Thursday's European match featuring Chelsea was only available on the commercial station, for example.
Freedom-lovers should reject the concept of radio rights anyway. Unlike TV, on which proper coverage is only possible with considerable co-operation from the sports authorities, radio only requires, say, a mobile phone. Certainly Today FM's long-awaited deal that at last sees the Irish station covering English soccer doesn't seem to have bought particularly good seats at Pride Park in Derby on Saturday. For the day's "big match", the team of Tom Tyrell and Gordon Hill were highly professional but apparently didn't have the best of views. Still, well done Today FM: the sound was top-notch and the regular round-ups from around England ran as slickly as the pitches on a rainy afternoon. The very English Tyrell and Hill might be advised against making ill-informed jokes about gaelic football (which Hill seemed to think is played in Belfast's Windsor Park), but no harm in having an Irish angle.
Community radio station Anna Livia FM should be free of such commercial pressures, right? Well, maybe, but the old sponsored-programme concept is making a comeback, with bells on.
On Friday evening Brian Lally hosted (beautifully) a bubbling chat about Bob Dylan's 1966 Manchester concert, featured on a new album. B.P. Fallon was fun, Pete Shortt had a great Irish angle, but the star was C.P. Lee, who's written a book on the gig.
The programme was presented "in association with" a big record shop, where Lee would be signing his book next day, and where constant ads told us the record was on sale too. And not a critical murmur was heard about book or album. Which may be fine. Or not. The concert was, after all, controversial, with folkies screaming "Judas!" (as opposed to "Ciunas!") at Dylan for going very, very noisily electric. The lads here agreed with standard rock historiography that they were sad saps, but wouldn't it have been interesting to hear a voice from the acoustic camp?
