Take a distinctly minority pursuit and stick a special about it in the gravest of graveyard shifts on RTE Radio 1. What have you got? The most hyped programme in recent memory, leaving the Eurovision in the ha'penny place. Mooney Goes Wild on 1 (RTE Radio 1, Sunday) marked BirdWatch Ireland National Dawn Chorus Day with an overnight, six-hour special from Cuskinny Marsh Nature Reserve near Cobh, Co Cork. RTE, clearly, was not going to spend that kind of money without drawing attention to it, so TV ads and a lengthy spot on Saturday's post-Eurovision TV news aided the effort. Oh, and the newspapers were hauled in, too.
As a result the usual Mooney listeners - a large and enthusiastic brigade, it should be said - were joined by punters who were new to this birdwatching, eh, lark.
Like the woman who phoned at 5 a.m., and whose only previous experience of birdsong was distinctly post-modern: "I used to have a budgie who could imitate the sound of my lighter."
Or the fella standing barefoot on his wall with the mobile phone held up near a tree and his girlfriend watching despairingly from the sitting room. Or the chap just home from a stags' night who set off a chat about mating calls and plumage.
Then there was the 80-year-old who suspected the whole show was a fraud - because when she phoned from just up the road in Douglas, she got through to a Dublin switchboard. Yes, the stars of this show were wingless - not the usual suspects, irrepressible Eanna Ni Lamhna, Richard Collins and Mooney himself, but the callers who painted wonderful word pictures of their own noisy dawns.
The Cuskinny birds had the best in stereo equipment pointed at them all night, but were, for ages, a bit microphone-shy (possibly it was the cold morning!). The bubbly Mooney crew were inclined to interrupt the magic of the moment: when the Cobh birds were finally clearing their throats, Derek burst out: "There's the pheasant! That bugger lost me 50 quid." (He'd backed it to sing first, seemingly.)
The lateness of the Cork chorus pushed Mary Phelan's documentary about the corncrake out of the programme, unfortunately; but even without this final, cautionary verse about the threat man poses to bird, the song's message was loud and clear.
When it comes to going wild and outdoor pursuits, Britain's Talk Radio's answer to Derek Mooney must be Danny Baker - one difference, however, being that Baker manages to get much more politics into talking about football than Mooney extracts from environmental issues. Go figure.
Baker loves a conspiracy theory. While I don't necessarily buy the one about Alex Ferguson's secret resignation from Man United, the one about Celtic and the peace process has legs. Basically, Baker was saying for weeks on his various phone-in programmes that Celtic were being handed the Scottish title as a sop to Northern nationalists; he started to abandon the idea a couple of weeks back when it appeared the Bhoys were going to throw it away. But I'm not so sure.
Celtic's stutters of the last few weeks meant that the league was only sewn up, at long last, on the weekend of the special Sinn Fein Ardfheis - ensuring that a high proportion of delegates spent Saturday afternoon near a radio and the rest of the weekend in unbridled celebration and unshakeably great form. "Ah sure Gerry, whatever you say - Loooow liiie the fields of Athenry . . ."
Moreover, it was St Johnstone's Northern Irish striker, George O'Boyle, who managed to miss an open goal with a six-yard header that would have pushed Celtic into second place. Who got to him? Rangers' fans deserve to know. (Heh, heh.)
The Irish media showed the usual incomprehension about the importance of the Scottish finale to fans here, though Today FM's reports were more frequent and vibrant than RTE's. Friday evening's coverage on Radio 1 of the European under-16 triumph brought Celtic talk by default: Gabriel Egan and Packie Bonner were sitting there in Scotland, the Celtic fans were singing for the Irish lads and it seems no advertisements were booked for half-time, so . . .
Our Packie, normally the soul of diplomacy, was unmistakably unhappy about his old club's top management and its attitude to Celtic's traditions. Would the Irish victory on Friday give Celtic a lift for Saturday? "Hopefully it will - there are still one or two people at the club who have strong feelings for Ireland."
