Radio reviewWhen Travellers are usually on the radio, they're on the back foot. Typically, it's when someone from that community has been asked to comment on the latest slash-hook wedding fracas, illegal dumping mess or residents association versus halting site row, writes Bernice Harrison
No one ever sounds good or reasonable when they're on the defensive. That's why Henry McKean's Halting Henry, on Different Voices (Newstalk, Sunday), was such an intriguing listen.
The Ballinasloe Horse Fair, the annual opportunity for Travellers to meet, deal, fight and match-make, provided the backdrop. McKean stayed in a caravan surrounded by, as he described it, smart new jeeps and pricey vans. He couldn't sleep because of the fighting raging throughout the night. "Feuding is something I come across again and again," he said. It's part of the culture, where the concept of family pride is strong and losing face is not an option for young men.
"Without glorifying it, I think it's a way of settling differences," said one older woman, although bare-knuckle boxing has, according to another, got out of hand because fellas are becoming superfit and training for it. Michael McDonagh explained that the feuding "is not so much between two separate families but within the same family".
McKean's style is relaxed, chatty and non-judgmental, and the Travellers he interviewed were open with him, from the gay man who has experienced bitter discrimination from his own people, to eight-year-old Luke, who said that his "friends won't play with me in school and call me names". The teenage girls were the most frank. Dressed in hot pants and belly tops, all accepted they were to remain virgins until a marriage was arranged for them. As for school, staying on after Confirmation was pointless, as most hoped to be married by 16. If they reached 21 and were unmarried, they were on the shelf.
"Travellers need education to explain their culture," said a wise older man, adding yet another example of the many contradictions in Traveller culture revealed in a quiet way by McKean.
TOM FEILDEN EXPLORED another difficult contradiction in The Ice Cream Man Cometh (BBC Radio 4, Tuesday) - can large corporations ever be truly ethical? Jerry Greenfield, of Ben & Jerry's fame, has set up an annual project, rather pompously called the Climate Change College, whereby six young "ambassadors" are sent to the Arctic to gain first-hand experience of global warming in the hope that they can then provide solutions to the problem. Seven hundred hopefuls applied, and Lesley Butler from Co Westmeath was one of this year's lucky six. Feilden explored the contradiction at the heart of the initiative. It would be one thing if it was coming from a couple of hairy hippies making Chunky Monkey and Cherry Garcia in Vermont, but they sold out years ago to Unilever in a multi-million dollar deal. "Isn't this just another example of greenwash?" asked Fielden, suggesting that such initiatives were a way for large corporations to appear to be green. "Isn't there an irony in making your money on a consumer product and yet it's consumerism that's doing the damage?" he asked Greenfield, whose response to any of the criticisms was the laid-back, hippyesque, "You do what you can do".
IN AS MUCH as it would be interesting to see any listenership figures, it would be intriguing to see how the three national drivetime talkshows fared when up against each other with pretty much the same content. Wednesday was Budget day and Drivetime (RTÉ), The Right Hook, (Newstalk) and The Last Word (Today FM), started early to catch Brian Cowen as he stood up to deliver the news. The trouble was there didn't seem to be quite enough numbers to crunch, or good or even bad news to parse and analyse, so that all three seemed to be struggling to fill their longer-than-usual programmes. Drivetime did better when it came to the overall package because it had its excellent website to constantly refer to - handy where there's so many numbers and tables involved - though Mary Wilson, who has softened up a bit in recent times, went back to her schoolmarm tone, especially when compared with the relaxed blokey tone in Matt Cooper's studio.
David McWilliams was entertainingly dismissive of the Budget. "It's an indication of a State that hasn't a rashers what to do." Though maybe those with weak stomachs could have done without some of his imagery, particularly his vision of Brian Cowen in a loincloth throwing euros into the sea off the Giant's Causeway. Breakfast Roll Man caught on, hopefully Brian in a loincloth won't.