IT'S not the norm that a defining moment in history comes with signposts visible weeks and months in advance. However, Drumcree Three, a prime candidate for such status, has been marked on our calendars since last July.
Why then, Eamon Dunphy pointedly asked on Sunday Supplement (Radio Ireland), were we relying on Sky News for TV coverage from Portadown on Sunday morning? He might also have wondered aloud why the only substantial radio coverage before 11.30 a.m. was on BBC Radio 5 Live, which had regular reports and updates from bright and early, then devoted most of its main morning hat show, Currie On Sunday, to other interviews and reporting.
So Beeb listeners were the first to hear the SDLP's Mark Durkan calling Mo Mowlam "a dead luck". On the BBC, too, we heard live word-pictures of open-air Mass on the Garvaghy Road. RTE Radio 1's hourly reports were paltry not only by comparison with its public-service neighbour to the east and north, but also compared with the slightly longer, livelier items on under-resourced Radio Ireland.
But it was after 11.30 a.m., with said Sunday Supplement, that Radio Ireland really wiped the floor with the complacent Irish competition. Regular listeners got the added pleasure of hearing the programme's smug boys' brigade get a little come-uppance, when smug-meister John Ryan apologised to Nell McCafferty for his "insensitive" comparison of the overnight RUC operation on the Garvaghy Road to her travails on the Gay Byrne Show survival course.
Ryan - whose attitude Ulick O'Connor ascribed to his "garrisontown" origins in Athlone! - and some of the studio lads still insisted on snide comments about republican conspiracies and tribal barbarities, but the programme's heart was in Portadown, where a powerful Katie Hannon and McCafferty provided on-the-spot reports.
Thus we heard, live, Green MEP Patricia McKenna being moved away from the media area by RUC men and sent "back to the croppies" as Nell (who else?) put it, adding inimitably: "A member of the European Parliament is being removed - Northern Ireland is removing itself from Europe!"
On Sunday morning, the testimonies of four women - Hannon, McCafferty, McKenna and, elsewhere, Bnd Rodgers - provided incontrovertible evidence for listeners of the RUC's heavy-handedness.
When RTE Radio 1's Sunday Show finally got around to the subject after noon, it staged just another familiar argument around the principles of the issue, including Ruth Dudley-Edwards suggesting that the Orange march should no more be opposed than, Saturday's gay-pride parade was in conservative areas of London. An interesting point, perhaps, but she seemed to go on to suggest that unionists are notable for their stoic acceptance of nationalist parades in "their" areas. Hello?
Like Denis Faul on yesterday's Morning Ireland (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Friday) and Eoghan Harris, also yesterday, performing a brilliant, apocalyptic soliloquy on Talkback (Radio Ireland, Monday to Friday), Dudley- Edwards seems inclined to blame Sinn Fein.
We can expect more such talk of "agitators" as Ormeau approaches. Will no one point out the irony? After the IRA ceasefire, Sinn Fein put greater effort into providing non-violent leadership, in communities where it enjoys overwhelming support, on issues that have been of longstanding concern to residents - issues that also highlight the broader political context as SF sees it. In other words, pundits are criticising republicans for doing good, grassroots political work.
On Talkback, Harris wielded a disarming array of historical, philosophical and political references as his analysis carried dizzy listeners, Emily O'Reilly and Mark Costigan included, right to the brink of civil war in Ireland, with Northern nationalists reprising the suitably villainous role of the Bosnian Serbs. He described himself, repeatedly, as "a Wolfe Tone republican", and to hear his warmth towards the Orange Order you might have thought Orangemen lined up beside Henry Joy McCracken in 1798 to fight for the unity of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter.
Having said that, I don't want to start giving wonky history lessons myself, so answers on a postcard, please: has a woman ever before gone solo in the RTE Radio I studio presenting the main morning programme? Last Thursday and Friday, thanks to Myles Dungan's strange devotion to golf, Today with Myles Dungan and Carrie Crowley was essentially presented by the latter,
Pioneer or not, Crowley - whose promise was already realised in spades for Eurovision - is a bright, sharp presenter, who also got a gift on Friday in the form of a big story from her former outpost, Waterford. Sometimes she moves too fast and is over-inclined to laugh - giving a distracting, nervy edge to items - but she might just be a worthy long-term heir to that time-slot.
