Sad and indeed momentous though the death of Pope Francis is, the general reaction is, to use the trusty adage, one of shock but not surprise.
Nowhere more so than on Nature on One (RTÉ Radio 1, Monday), where Derek Mooney’s planned programme about the natural world is ruined by the breaking news of the pontiff’s passing.
“I can tell you that I’m sitting here with a panel of wildlife experts,” the presenter tells listeners. “And we took a deep sigh. Every one of us is genuinely shocked.” About the pope’s death, one presumes.
This sense of disbelief only grows for listeners as Mooney is obliged to forgo his chatty wildlife brief and instead helm coverage of the papal story, to intermittently jaw-dropping effect.
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Understandably, Mooney initially seems discombobulated at having to execute such a drastic U-turn in tone and content. Though he talks about the “very sad news” of the pope’s death, he sounds vaguely peeved at the disruption caused to his wildlife special.
And, with the news having broken as he came on air, the host has to extemporise, using any references to hand. Discussing the late pope’s personality, Mooney draws on an unusual journalistic source, the 2019 film The Two Popes: “He came across in that movie as a very warm person and someone who was very much in touch with the people.” Well, the actor Jonathan Pryce did, at least.
Similarly, Mooney reflects on Francis’s legacy in idiosyncratic fashion, recalling how a million people flocked to see John Paul II in the Phoenix Park in Dublin in 1979. “I was one of them, and I remember him well, and I remember Pope Francis. You need people like him.” Indeed we do.
One suddenly pines for the gravitas and authority of Marty Morrissey, Radio 1’s regular host on bank-holiday-Monday mornings.
In fairness, ad-libbing on a developing news story for two hours would be a challenge for seasoned anchors, never mind a broadcaster once known for his frothy midafternoon chatshow in the Radio 1 slot currently occupied by Ray D’Arcy.
Mooney has to tamp down his chirpy instincts as he talks to his hastily assembled cast of guests; he sounds far happier when he finally gets to discuss the nesting strategies of Irish birds in a second instalment of his nature programme, later in the day.
That said, when covering events in Rome, he has the nous to let his guests do most of the talking, allowing some vivid impressions to emerge.
The former president Mary McAleese delivers an ambivalent snap verdict on Francis’s papacy, suggesting he didn’t do enough for women in the church, while approving of his openness to change: “He was a great man for leaving doors open.”
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The former archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin lauds the pope for trying to follow the example of Jesus, who “lived in ways that renounced many of the judgmental ideas we have”. By way of emphasis, Martin reveals that Francis would regularly meet a group of cross-dressing sex workers. Mooney lets this information pass without comment: there are only so many shocks anyone can handle.
On Tuesday a more disputatious atmosphere prevails when Cormac Ó hEadhra assesses the pope’s legacy on Drivetime (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays). The host hears from Colm O’Gorman, founder of the abuse-survivor charity One in Four, who praises Francis for his compassion towards marginalised people before adding a crucial caveat: “On the issue of clerical child sexual abuse, I think he failed in many of the same ways as his predecessors.”
O’Gorman stresses that clerical abuse was not a series of isolated lapses and failures but a deliberate cover-up mandated from the highest echelons of the Catholic Church. “Francis never acknowledged the fundamental responsibility of the Vatican,” he says, regretfully but firmly.
Ó hEadhra’s other guest, the Vatican-based priest Msgr Enda Murphy, gently responds that Francis, to whom he was domestic chaplain, set up processes aimed at acknowledging such responsibilities. (In common with others, Murphy also says he was shocked but not surprised by the pontiff’s death.)
But O’Gorman, while respectful in comportment, sticks to his point. “The truth matters,” he says, “and I’m sorry to say Francis failed to show a commitment to the truth.”
Even amid the sorrow at the loss of a moral voice as strong as Pope Francis, the legacy of clerical abuse continues to haunt his church.
The long shadow cast by abusive Catholic institutions is referenced by Brendan O’Connor (RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday and Sunday) during his interview with the author Claire Keegan. The host wonders whether Keegan’s acclaimed novel Small Things Like These, which explores the complicit relationship between a Magdalene laundry and a local rural community, has brought the issue back into the public consciousness. His guest responds that her book approaches such homes in “slantways” fashion. Likewise, O’Connor’s conversation with his guest threatens to go sideways, but it is ultimately an engrossing encounter.
A wobble occurs when the host asks Keegan about the movie versions of Small Things Like These and her short story Foster, filmed as An Cailín Ciúin. “I didn’t get excited over the films,” she replies.
Undaunted by this cool response, O’Connor wonders how she felt seeing her books adapted for the cinema. “I’d rather you asked me something else,” Keegan replies. The host persists, but to no avail: “It’s not that I can’t describe it. It’s just that I’d rather answer another question,” she reiterates.
An uncharacteristically chastened O’Connor has no choice but to move on.
Far from being derailed, however, the interview steams ahead. O’Connor, having learned his lesson, judiciously allows Keegan to talk on her own terms about her Wicklow childhood (“We weren’t a close family”) and teenage years (“I felt like the 1980s were desolate”), as well as rhapsodising about her love for horses and, less predictably, pigs.
[ Claire Keegan: ‘I don’t come from a close family. We are not close at all’Opens in new window ]
Having survived the early bump in the road, the host is audibly entranced by the end: “That was stunning. Thank you so much.”
It’s rare to hear O’Connor conspicuously bested by a guest, but for him to be grateful too? Now that’s surprising.
Moment of the week
Given the news from Rome, papal movies are all the rage this week – not just The Two Popes but, more pertinently, Conclave, the recent film about the election of a new pontiff. But anyone tempted to use the Ralph Fiennes-starring feature as a guide to papal selection might heed Wednesday’s Drivetime, when its host Sarah McInerney asks John Allen, editor of the Catholic news website Crux, if the film is accurate. “That’s like thinking the movie Spaceballs is a good guide to space travel,” Allen says with a chuckle, citing Mel Brooks’s 1987 Star Wars spoof. That’s a no, so.
