So far, this summer no more looks like yielding up some sustained silliness than it seems willing to give us - say - three clear, sunny days on the trot. Perhaps the weather and the scope for media output that is even more ephemeral and disposable than at other times of the year will improve in the coming weeks. For the moment, we're stuck with talk about big issues of politics and peace.
That's not to say there hasn't been a certain giddiness in the air, particularly in the coverage of the Dunnes tribunal. For
Playback (RTE Radio 1, Saturday), Treasa Davison put together a wonderful selection of material, capturing the wide range of reactions to Charles Haughey's testimony last week; she even sneaked in stuff from beyond radio, by including quotes from Miriam Lord's memorable "tissue of lies" piece in the Irish Independent - as cited on It Says in the Papers. The breathlessness, outrage and amusement of the event were all there, and that was just in Charlie
Bird's chat with Gerry Ryan. Then, suddenly, as we went about our
Saturday-morning chores, Play- back was interrupted: bewilderingly, there was Charlie Bird again, live this time, with news of the IRA
ceasefire.
Despite the cool promptings of newsreader Ken Hammond - no "How dramatic is this news, Charlie?" - Bird Live was the same combination of hyperbole and hyperventilation as Bird on Tape. The limitations of the short IRA announcement he had just received, which stuck to the letter of the two governments' requirements and pledged only to restore a ceasefire long derided as "tactical" by unionist politicians, should have been obvious to most listeners; Bird gave no indication that he saw them. Instead he excitedly repeated the word
"unequivocal", as if doing so would confer some meaning on it. But sure, Charlie was the man with the news, and - as with the Haughey story - there were more than enough people around to provide analysis.
With these two talk-rich stories to consider, Eamon Dunphy was a lucky man last week. Irreconcilable differences have seen Ann Marie
Hourihane withdraw from the drive-time studio of The Last Word
(Radio Ireland, Monday to Fri- day), though she continues to provide excellent recorded interludes.
This is all very well when Eamon can turn his attention to
Kinsealy and points further north; but some dog day later this summer his producer is going to line up a celebrity-pets interview with a stringer in Hollywood, and he's going to wish Ann Marie were around.
The rest of us can only hope this development in The Last Word (if it is not reversed) will mean - at the very least - a return to some print journalism for Hourihane, as well as other broadcasting opportunities where her talents will get more recognition. From the time she blew her way into the Zeitgeist with her startling pieces for Night- hawks, Hourihane's commentaries in various media have been the best in the business, both sharp and well-rounded - if that is physically possible. Apart from all that, she's the best TV
interviewer ever to lob questions at this columnist. (Actually, that should read "better"; her only competition is a nice old lady on a
New Jersey senior-citizens programme, who posed tough queries about my project for the school history club.)
No, I've no special insight at all into the background to
Hourihane's trouble in Radio Ireland - all gossip welcome at this address, please. Ironically, it comes at a time when women are presenting other national current affairs programmes with great success; they are led, without doubt, by the better-and-better Emily
O'Reilly on Radio Ireland's Day- break, but Aine Lawlor (Morning
Ireland), Carrie Crowley (Today, etc) and Rachel English (News at
One) are thriving at RTE, a pattern which one hopes will continue beyond the summer. The excellent, under-utilised Emer Woodfull hosted the last Soundbyte (RTE Radio 1, Saturday) and also deserves more.
These last four women, plus the peripatetic Joe Duffy, have all helped Radio 1 raise its game against the new competition. Radio
Ireland, perhaps, underrated the incumbent, and Montrose is now cocky enough that the travails at "Radio Mireland" figured prominently in the comic new reel-style segment of Brendan Balfe's On Balfe Street
(Saturday). Four months ago, people in RTE genuinely wished Radio
Ireland well, if only so that RTE's own competitive advantage wouldn't come under political pressure. Today, however, Radio
Ireland's casualties are clearly self-inflicted; a little guilt-free triumphalism from Montrose is to be expected.
