Autumn arrived this week and Radio 1 was back, with bells and whistles. If there was any doubt that researchers, producers and presenters take the new season kick-off as seriously as Mick McCarthy does, it was dispelled in the time it took on Marian Finucane (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Friday) for the returning host to greet Monday's studio guest, Lavinia Kerwick, and assure us that she was looking very well.
Make no mistake, this was a coup - don't forget it was over on Gerry Ryan (2FM, Monday to Friday) that Kerwick made her radio mark all those years ago. And any questions about the appropriateness or otherwise of this appearance can be referred, and dismissed, under the heading "Celebrity (Its Own Rationale)". Way back in the post-punk early 1980s, in the ads for each gig the great Johnny Thunders was billed as the "yes, still-living legend". Any appearance, we were not-so-subtly promised, could be his last. Kerwick's turn with Marian - her first time in the media since some heart-rending appearances last year - was something of a declaration that this billing no longer applies to her.
Over the weekend, she told us, she'd introduced a pop gig. Since June, she assured us, she'd decided to live, no longer as a victim but as a young woman intent on enjoying life. Her younger sister Alma had taught her, she said, in front of a mirror, with hand on mouth, how to laugh. And so, from that studio in that Montrose basement, we heard Lavinia laugh and laugh.
It was hard to believe it could be as simple as that - and it wasn't. Kerwick told Finucane about that extra stone-and-a-half she'd had to lose recently - weight that would have brought her up over seven stone. "I still have a problem with food," she admitted, redundantly. And there was something a little bit desperate and infinitely sad in the simple way she formulated her views on rape: "When I say no, that means no - do you know that sort of way?"
Nonetheless, this public confession of recovery was worthwhile - after all her public confessions to the contrary - and would have touched many listeners. Marian called the teenaged Alma into the studio, and gave us a small glimpse of Kerwick family life - though when Alma mentioned their "private chats", Finucane (perhaps thinking of the critics) smiled, "Well, since they're private I can't ask you about them."
Is Paul McGrath searching for the fragments of his privacy after Finucane's interview, the very next day, with yes-still-legendary Jack Charlton? Most Irish soccer fans will be glad of the efforts made to "protect" McGrath from the consequences of his alcohol abuse, and from press revelations about it. "He was such a great player," Jack said, "that we'd have bent over backwards to have assisted him." Al-Anon might have another word for it: McGrath's Irish teammates - and presumably other colleagues - were arguably classic "enablers", allowing this wonderful player to carry on without confronting his problem.
Or is that just wally, Irish Times therapy-speak? Well, maybe we could do with more of that. Perhaps you'd think, what with all that "51st state" lark about how American we've all become, that the idea of seeking therapy would be thoroughly normalised in this society. Not according to The Health Report (RTE Radio 1, Tuesday). Yetti Redmond's often-intense series returned with a quite powerful attack on the continuing stigmatisation of therapy-seekers. The testimony came from an array of people who had been forced to treat counselling as their dark secret. And from one who learned to her regret that she should have kept it that way: a woman who decided to mention to her insurance broker that she had previously had some therapy discovered that she couldn't get personal health insurance when she became self-employed. This disgraceful state of affairs wasn't a once-off; an insurance industry spokesperson confirmed to Redmond that this might well reflect many companies' policy. It's more than a little grimly ironic, because while this programme steered clear of exaggerated claims about the value of therapy, one young man made it obvious that if he hadn't sought counselling, someone might well have been collecting a life-assurance pay-out.
Meanwhile, elsewhere on Radio 1, another stigmatised group was having its rights vindicated: pity the poor property developer, latest victim in Ireland's inexorable progress towards a form of National Socialism.
So said Mary Ellen Synon on Today with Pat Kenny (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Friday). And our Pat, though obviously uncomfortable with the image of Noel Dempsey in jackboots, was inclined to agree: why should someone with the prescience to pick out a good race horse be able to pocket the profits, while someone who picked up building land on the cheap 10 years ago is forced to share the largesse, essentially, with a few less fortunate/canny families?
Fortunately, in the diversity of the Radio 1 landscape, we were reminded that, just maybe, people's homes should not be regarded as the same sort of property as a horse. Carpets and Curtains Included (Monday), a new series about housing, got off to a lively start with a look at renting accommodation - and all the blather in the world about "the great majority of landlords are wonderful" couldn't conceal the essential injustice in tales of rising rents, evictions, and even a wrestling match with a deposit-hoarding landlord over a set of keys.
Sure, landlords and developers are only playing a game which this society generally cheers with both praise and financial rewards. But occasionally, shouldn't we be able to say when they're offside?