When Joe Duffy sees an elephant cry

NEVER ONE TO RESPECT outdated shibboleths, Joe Duffy again proved his credentials as a fearless iconoclast last week, when he broke one of the hoariest proscriptions in popular culture and worked with both children and animals.

Admittedly, Duffy was only speaking about these unpredictable entities rather than actually interacting with them, but the resulting edition of Liveline(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) was as chaotic and irrational as anything directly involving children or animals. It was also more dispiriting.

The fauna in question were a family of elephants recently seen parading through Fermoy, Co Cork, to promote the travelling circus that owns them, a spectacle that offended John Carmody of the Animal Rights Action Network.

Judging by Duffy’s slightly jaded demeanour, Carmody had form when it came to being affronted. “What’s annoying you this time?” asked the presenter, by way of introduction.

The treatment of the elephants was the short answer. One only had to look at photographs of the elephants to see they were “broken”, said Carmody. The host, however, wasn’t sure how one could infer this from the visual evidence, though he conceded the animals had “long faces”, arf arf.

Carmody said his opposition was not just based on the “emotional element”, but there was little in the way of cool logic on show. The activist used the term “heartbreaking” half a dozen times or so, as he bemoaned the lack of regulation of entertainment involving animals. “The Government doesn’t give two hoots about animals,” he said, his voice choking. “It has to bloody stop.”

Circus beasts are not the only sector being neglected by the State, apparently: Tuesday’s Liveline was dominated by a wearisome but telling debate about whether the Government’s education policies were failing children, specifically Catholic children. Karen and Michelle, two mothers living in Ashbourne, Co Meath, complained there was no room for their children at the local Catholic school, leaving the new nondenominational Educate Together facility as (potentially) the only option. For both women, a lack of religious instruction during the school day was unacceptable.

“I don’t see why, us being a Catholic nation, we have to do extra classes to do our own religion,” said Karen.

It was a view echoed by Michelle, who felt that, “as a Catholic, I have parental rights”, namely for her child to receive her religious upbringing at school.

Duffy’s manner was sympathetic even as he posed awkward questions to keep the debate going. Wasn’t religion best taught at home, he wondered, pointing out that “Catholicism is not a Leaving Cert subject”. The discussion suggested that, despite the clerical-abuse scandals, the desire for Catholic-oriented education still seems strong, even as Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn aims to reduce Catholic patronage of schools.

But as the analysis of the Government’s new school-building programme on Monday’s Drivetime (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) showed, although many Irish-language and nondenominational schools received funding, far from all did so, and many Catholic schools also got such grants.

For Liveline callers such as Helena, however, the lack of places in church-run schools for Michelle and Karen’s children was proof of a “bigger picture”: that Quinn was “determined to shove any kind of religion or God out of education”. Duffy retorted that it looked more like evidence of a demographic explosion that had resulted in the population of towns such as Ashbourne increasing dramatically.

Maybe so, but the item had touched on an ominous undercurrent in Irish life. When members of the long-dominant majority community start feeling like victims, it is rarely a good omen for future harmony.

As it is, the Irish seem to possess a pretty robust capacity for intolerance. At least that was the impression left by Different Voices: I'm a Roma Gypsy(Newstalk, Saturday), which looked at a community that fled historic discrimination in eastern Europe only to encounter more prejudice here.

Henry McKean’s documentary aimed to cover all aspects of Roma life and culture, but inevitably the hostility encountered by these misunderstood people loomed large. Often speaking with broad Irish accents, Roma schoolchildren told how fellow pupils insulted them to their face, an experience shared by their parents.

While empathising with his subjects, McKean did not shy away from the more troubling aspects of Roma life. Begging was a deeply ingrained habit for many families, as vividly captured by a segment on the harsh routine of young indigents on Dublin streets.

The community also had a social insularity that at times bordered on the incestuous. One Roma girl described how marriages were arranged when prospective couples were as young as nine years old: she knew of one bride who married her first cousin.

McKean’s creditable programme did not encourage optimism about how a community with such distinctive – and alienating – traditions could easily fit into Irish life. But the alternatives, it seemed, were even worse. “We want to stay here,” said one interviewee. “Our old country is not a nice place.”

Hardly a ringing endorsement of your new home. Happy St Patrick’s Day.

Radio moment of the week

Normally a model of scrupulous balance, RTÉ's veteran Northern correspondent, Brendan Wright, made a rare political jag during his report on Wednesday's Drivetime(RTÉ Radio 1) about cuts in expenses at the Stormont assembly. He noted that the amount of free office supplies available to MLAs, once unlimited, had been reduced to £1,000 (€1,200) a year. It was, Wright wryly noted, "a move that may interest TDs". Are you listening, Aengus?