RADIO REVIEW:GIVEN THE WEEK that was in it, Hector Ó hEochagáin's excitement was understandable. Never one to hide his enthusiasms, the country's most ubiquitous Gaeilgeoir loudly proclaimed his love of the pageantry and high jinks associated with a quintessentially Irish event. And when he was not enthusing about the Cheltenham Festival on his show, Breakfast with Hector(2FM, weekdays), Ó hEochágain was pretty positive about St Patrick's Day too.
The presenter has a long-held passion for racing, as his ads for the sport testify, and, having reported from nine festivals for Gerry Ryan, Cheltenham has a special place in his heart. This year, however, Ó hEochágain was giving it a miss. “I can’t go to every cockfight,” he said. “I have to put my show first.”
But it was obvious where he wanted to be as he ruminated about the craic that would be had and the Guinness that would be sampled across the water while giving out daily tips for punters. “There’s more money leaving this week than the IMF will ever get out of us,” he told his 2FM colleague Ryan Tubridy gleefully. Short of wearing a leprechaun hat, he could not have conformed any better to the stereotype of the pony-loving, stout-swilling Irishman.
Ó hEochágain’s show mixes passion for all things Irish with contrived shtick. Broadcasting from Galway, he plays up the non-metropolitan image. On Monday he complained that the area had the country’s worst tailbacks, due to neglect of the west. Or, as he put it, the wesht. The displaced Meath native’s inflections sound affected by his locale: he talked about “shlipping and shliding” out of nightclubs and asked a caller if she was “feeling a bit shtiff” after a GAA match.
That said, Ó hEochágain revels in uncovering the quirks of rural Ireland. On Tuesday, for example, he invited opinions on whether hurling was played with a hurl or a hurley. And for all his verbal tics he finds an evocative turn of phrase: “The potholes in the middle of Gort, you could fish for trout in them.”
There is a counter-intuitive logic to his 2FM slot, his laddish parochialism playing off the more urbane image of Tubridy, in theory at least. But like those of a hyperactive toddler, Ó hEochágain’s cheeky charms can wear thin quickly.
Exaggerated local accents were in evidence elsewhere last week, courtesy of Tom Dunne(Newstalk, weekdays). This time, however, the comic effect was intentional and welcome. Dunne had pandered to some tiresome St Patrick's Day tropes, running a drink-related item about mathematicians at the University of Limerick seeking a formula for the perfect head of stout, as well as a segment about an attempt to set the world record for most people dressed as leprechauns, a category overlooked hitherto by Guinness World Records. At this time of year such otherwise offbeat items flirted with paddywhackery.
But Dunne compensated by resurrecting another caricature, his alter ego, Dr Bill. Loosely inspired by the inner-city boy turned businessman Bill Cullen, Dunne’s character tested contestants’ knowledge of local lore and slang with his “patented 1916 do-you- know-Dublin-like-what-I-know-Dublin quiz”. It was infectious stuff, with Dunne and his callers giggling uncontrollably as the questions grew more surreal. “Which part of Dr Bill’s physique do most Billy Bunters want to touch?” Dunne asked in his most cartoonish Liberties argot. “Me ties, they’re like tree trunks.”
Monday's edition of Liveline(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) showed the less savoury side of patriotic fervour. Joe Duffy's interview with John Stokes, the Dublin publican who had put up a sign "officially barring" Queen Elizabeth II from his establishment, triggered a fractious show. Stokes, whose son Anthony plays for Celtic, opposed the British queen's visit partly on grounds of cost but also because she was head of armed forces "occupying" the North.
Most callers disagreed with his gesture, but he grew more defiant, saying the British had taken everything from Ireland before independence and that people had been “conned” into voting for the Belfast Agreement. Gary, a former British soldier from Armagh, said Stokes sounded “like he’s a dissident supporter, so he does”, before bringing up IRA atrocities.
Duffy harried his guest about another matter, last year’s shooting of three men outside his pub. The publican said the crime was due to his barring drug dealers from his pub and had no paramilitary link, but Duffy wondered whether Stokes was not “impugning” the victims by now displaying his republican sympathies. Stokes’s views may be unpalatable to most, but, by harping on about the shooting, Duffy shifted the goalposts of the discussion to a more ambivalent realm.
By the show’s end the exchanges had taken a depressingly familiar tone. One caller supported Stokes, pointing out that the queen’s ancestors had presided over the Famine. “How many Irish people were murdered by Victoria? This is not forgotten.” “Obviously not,” said Duffy wearily. No matter how much Ireland moves on, there will always be those who still revert to type.
radioreview@irishtimes.com
Radio moment of the week
Sean Moncrieff couldn't help sounding a bit smug. On Monday a listener had texted his show, Moncrieff(Newstalk, weekdays), seeking help with his love life: he had not had sex with his wife since Christmas. The next day the same man texted that his "drought" had ended. Moncrieff was exultant.
“Congratulations to you. I hope it’s because of the great advice we gave you,” he said. “In fact we’ll just assume that is the case and take complete credit for that. Tell you what, Joe Duffy never gets anyone laid.”
Now that’s sticking it to the opposition.
