THE ANGELUS will from next Monday be changed – though not utterly. Under a revamping of the evening pause for prayer on RTÉ One television, the gongs will remain the same. These are the same ones as have been heard since the Angelus was first broadcast on RTÉ radio in 1950, and which originated with the bells at Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral.
But there will be seven “episodes” in a new Angelus mini-series of visual reflections, each of which will be aimed at encouraging viewers to take time out from “the weariness, the fever and the fret” of contemporary Irish life.
The editor of religious programmes at RTÉ, Roger Childs, said he hoped the new Angelus would “continue to be valued by many people as a moment of grace and peace”, as they took time out from “the whirr and blur of contemporary Irish life . . .”
The new series includes chalk artist Martin McCormack, from Finglas in Dublin – a chemist by trade. He has also worked in night shelters for the Salvation Army, which no doubt helped him keep his nerve as this particular reflection was filmed.
He is featured as a creature of oblivious calm amid the hue and cry as buses, cars and noisy people bustle past him in the traffic of Dublin’s College Green while he sketches an image of a pair of praying hands.
A more poignant visual sequence features a mother in Sixmilebridge, Co Clare, as she polishes a memorial stone to her drowned son, who died in the nearby river.
Then there are grandparents Tess and Pascal Finn feeding fussy swans on the Shannon at Limerick and Enniscorthy fisherman John Keating, who is shown out at sea in his trawler.
Another reflection shows Namucana Nyambe from Zambia as she gazes contemplatively towards the Phoenix Park from her offices near Heuston Station in Dublin.
There are few overt religious symbols in the new series. In general, the reflections are spiritual in tone but not bound to any religion or denomination. They are not too dissimilar to those they replace and have been produced by the same company, Kairos Communications.
An interesting detail revealed by Mr Childs is that the Angelus is “Ireland’s most watched religious programme, with an average of 318,000 viewers every day”.
Now there’s grist to the mill for those avid letter writers who have been campaigning for years to get the Angelus taken off the schedule of the State broadcaster.