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Newstalk’s Kieran Cuddihy is on top form but not everything that comes out of his mouth is palatable

Radio: ‘If I was walking the dog, no one around, I’d hock up a big spit and fire it into the air,’ he announces

Snot rockets were cited on Kieran Cuddihy's show this week. Photograph: Newstalk

Mick Heaney's face
Mick Heaney
Fri Jan 26 2024 - 05:55

Kieran Cuddihy is spitting mad, and he wants you to know it. It’s not that the calamitous state of the world has pushed the host of The Hard Shoulder (Newstalk, weekdays) to the edge of a Howard Beale-style breakdown, however. Rather, Cuddihy simply likes to expectorate. “If I was walking the dog in the morning, it was dark and there was no one around, I’d hock up a big spit and fire it up into the air,” he reveals on Tuesday’s show. “There’s something primal about it.” Cuddihy is rarely shy about speaking his mind, but it’s surprising for him to be this gobby.

The presenter divulges his propensity for the occasional gollyer during his interview with the social-media influencer Holly Carpenter, who speaks about her dismay at the number of men she sees spitting in the street. (And it’s all sorts of men, she stresses, “not just young lads in tracksuits”.)

Following a graphic taxonomy of the expulsions involved – snot rockets are cited but not, disappointingly, pavement oysters – Cuddihy feels moved to defend this singularly male activity. “Maybe we just like our bodily fluids being spread far and wide,” he says, to the audible horror of his guest. Even when the microbiologist Orla Cahill later says that spitting is unhygienic, as it transmits infections, the host is unrepentant: “That’s why it’s important to get a bit of heft in it.” Lovely.

That’s about as weighty as the discussion gets. But if Cuddihy is in flighty mood, it’s not just because he enjoys grossing out his audience – “If you’re eating something now, stop,” he cautions at one point – but probably also because he knows that, with all that’s going on, listeners appreciate any light relief, no matter how icky.

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That said, Cuddihy doesn’t condone all bad behaviour. On Wednesday he sounds incredulous at an American chemistry professor’s suggestion that the perfect cup of tea should include a pinch of salt. After seeking advice on the matter from an AI site (ChatGPTea, one assumes) he takes the plunge and samples a saline cuppa in the company of the tea sommelier Jenna Logan. “It’s not great” is the host’s charitable verdict. There are some fluids that even he draws the line at.

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It’s not always so jolly. Following the approval of the world’s most expensive drug, Libmeldy, for use in Ireland to treat the rare, life-threatening childhood condition metachromatic leukodystrophy, or MLD, Cuddihy talks to Les Martin, whose six-year-old son Cathal died of the degenerative disease and whose younger son Ciaran also suffers from it. Martin tells how Libmeldy saved Ciaran’s life, while calling for increased MLD screening in newborns.

Cuddihy seeks to draw out his guest on his cruel bereavement, though he doesn’t sound entirely comfortable doing so. “I can’t understand what it’s like to go through that,” the host says, almost apologetically. Martin clearly finds it difficult to talk about his family’s awful experience but wants to raise awareness of the illness: “I feel obliged to tell our story.” It’s difficult but crucial listening.

Generally, however, Cuddihy manages to engage with substantive issues while engendering an accessible, easy-going ambience. This is particularly the case when he deals with societal issues, which is often. (Curiously few political or foreign-news stories feature on the week’s programme menu.) An interview with the crime journalist Nicola Tallant about the prevalence of cocaine turns into a brief social history of recreational drugs in Ireland, while a segment on underage alcohol consumption is somewhat undercut by people fondly recounting their memories of youthful drinking to Newstalk’s ubiquitous vox-pop specialist, Henry McKean.

Other items yield unexpected but intriguing sidebars, with a discussion on the high price of baby formula sparking a flurry of impassioned texts on the often unacknowledged difficulties of breastfeeding.

With an approachable style that’s both informative and entertaining, Cuddihy is in fine form at the moment, adding to the general air of confidence and vibrancy currently emanating from Newstalk’s weekday line-up. That said, not everything that comes out of his mouth is palatable.

Amid the quarrelling, Claire Byrne occasionally struggles to be heard, though, equally, she may be happy just to allow her guests to get at it

Things are less jaunty on Today with Claire Byrne (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), where the host covers issues in dependably thorough fashion but the atmosphere is rarely electrifying. Wednesday morning’s edition is different, however, as Byrne oversees a lively debate between Senators Rónán Mullen and Regina Doherty – neither of them noted for being microphone-shy – as they joust over the suitably charged issue of electric-shock dog collars.

With a Government ban on such devices under consideration, Mullen defends their use for training dogs to stay away from livestock, pointing to the canine attack that decimated a herd of sheep in Co Kerry this week. The Independent Senator claims the collars merely administer “a mild diversive stimulus” – he won’t use the word “shock” as it’s a “propagandistic term” – and repeatedly insists that more scientific research is needed on the subject.

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Doherty, meanwhile, maintains that the collars are cruel, subjecting dogs to extended shocks akin to electric perimeter fences, and disputes Mullen’s assertions: “My science is different to yours,” the Fine Gael Senator says, slightly bafflingly. Either way, the exchanges between the Seanad colleagues grow ever tetchier, as when Mullen suggests Doherty is actually making a case for shock collars to be used by qualified dog trainers. “Don’t tell me what I’m doing and what I’m not doing,” she responds sharply.

Amid the quarrelling, Byrne occasionally struggles to be heard, though, equally, she may be happy just to allow her guests to get at it: though hardly a dogfight, the encounter is considerably more animated than most of the host’s items. The wonder is that Byrne or her guests don’t get as worked up over bigger issues. After all, there are plenty of things about which to get mad, spitting, barking or otherwise.

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