On the surface it seems like a normal show, but an unusual atmosphere suffuses Wednesday’s Morning Ireland (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays): a party atmosphere. Or a good-natured social gathering, at any rate, as its long-serving presenters Mary Wilson and Áine Lawlor are surprised by the unexpected arrival of the sportscaster Des Cahill.
“Forgive me interrupting,” Cahill says, “but I want to take a couple of minutes to acknowledge two wonderful broadcasters who today are presenting Morning Ireland for the last time.”
Yet more RTÉ departures? Coming alongside Joe Duffy’s retirement and Claire Byrne’s imminent defection to Newstalk, Radio 1 staff could be forgiven for growing weary of office whip-arounds for exiting presenters.
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But there’s no mistaking the uncharacteristically celebratory air in the studio. Paying tribute to Wilson, who is retiring, and Lawlor, who will continue working on TV, Cahill sounds more moved than his colleagues: “I’ll have no one else to gossip with,” he wistfully remarks to Lawlor.
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Wilson breaks from her stern on-air persona to express sincere gratitude for her career, from court correspondent to presenter of Radio 1’s Drivetime. “You have such great fun as a journalist,” she says, a carefree recollection that may surprise those politicians mauled by her tenacious interrogation style.
Nor is it the only send-off of the day. Wilson and Lawlor have already bid farewell to the business correspondent Petula Martyn (off to become RTÉ’s midwestern correspondent), praising her “cheerful presence”, a welcome quality on a show that so often brings bleak tidings.
Overall, it’s an atypically upbeat edition of the flagship news programme, which even Lawlor concedes is sometimes a slog. “Thank you to people who do tune in every day, because it can be grim.”
The feelgood mood is so pervasive that it extends to news stories. Much breezy coverage is given to RTÉ’s hit reality game show The Traitors Ireland, which might seem a bit excessive but perhaps excusable, optimism being a scarce commodity around Montrose in recent times.
It briefly seems that the good vibes might even extend to the presidential hopeful Maria Steen, as the Independent Senator Aubrey McCarthy tells Wilson he will sign the conservative campaigner’s nomination, bringing her tantalisingly close to the 20 Oireachtas votes required for candidacy. “The decision itself is not an endorsement,” the Senator stresses.
It ends up not mattering, with Steen’s bid falling short later that day, but McCarthy’s interview adds a frisson of real-time political drama to proceedings.
So too does the appearance on Tuesday’s programme by the Independent presidential candidate Catherine Connolly, though she has little reason to cheer after her bruising encounter with (the non-retiring) Audrey Carville.
Following her comments on Talkback, on BBC Radio Ulster, that Hamas is “part of the fabric of the Palestinian people”, Connolly attempts to clarify her position, condemning the October 7th attacks on Israel as “absolutely unacceptable”, while adding that “both sides have committed war crimes”.
Carville relentlessly presses her guest on the issue. The Galway West TD, while sounding sincerely idealistic, struggles to set out her policies. She also sounds in danger of losing her voice at one stage – an unfortunate occurrence that is never the mark of a confident radio performance.
Either way, Carville’s dogged questioning emphasises that, the departure of stalwarts such as Wilson and Lawlor notwithstanding, it’s business as usual on Morning Ireland.
It’s a measure of the churn at Radio 1 that Ray D’Arcy (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) is now the elder statesman of the station’s daytime line-up, having occupied his mid-afternoon slot for a decade. And although his show may be too unbalanced in format and skittish in content to warrant venerable status, D’Arcy has been hosting some strikingly candid interviews between the chatty monologues and chirpy quizzes.
Speaking to the American singer Steve Earle on Tuesday, for instance, D’Arcy starts out pitching softball questions about his guest’s induction into Nashville’s country-music mecca, the Grand Ole Opry. Gradually, however, talk turns to more personal territory: Earle describes how raising a teenage son with autism limits his touring schedule, while the host asks, awkwardly but pertinently, about the boy’s future after his 70-year-old father dies, whenever that may be.
As if this isn’t stark enough, the singer discusses the addiction issues that saw him incarcerated in the 1990s, as well as the drug-related death of his oldest son, the singer-songwriter John Townes Earle, describing his fentanyl-laced cocaine overdose as murder.
Despite this, things never sound tense, with Earle engaging with D’Arcy’s questions. Still, both men unsurprisingly sound happier when they move on to the singer’s sojourns in Ireland and his resulting anthem, Galway Girl.
An equally raw tone prevails on Wednesday, when D’Arcy hears the former boxer Barry McGuigan describe how the suicide of his brother, Dermot, motivated his association with the men’s-health charity Movember. “I was destroyed and still am,” he says of the tragedy, more than 30 years ago.
As they talk McGuigan responds to his host’s diplomatic but deliberate probing with an honesty that’s almost painful, his voice cracking when he recalls his late daughter, the actor Nika McGuigan, who died of cancer in 2019. “She was my child, and I lost her and I’ll never get her back,” he says. “And that’s incredibly difficult to live with.”
D’Arcy’s curiosity about such loss isn’t that of a rubbernecker; rather, he speaks of his own recent bereavement. “I lost my mother recently,” he says. “It was the first time I felt real grief, the physical effects of grief.”
The openness of both guest and host gives their conversation an emotional charge not always associated with afternoon chat shows, but D’Arcy is at his most effective when dealing with issues close to him. It’s not all fun and games.
Moment of the week
Back for a third series, For the Record (RTÉ Gold, Sunday) sees Pat O’Mahony continue his shaggily entertaining trawl through the music collections of various notables. The latest show, on RTÉ’s digital oldies station, has O’Mahony sifting through records belonging not only to the composer Peadar Ó Riada but also to his guest’s late father, Seán Ó Riada.
As they listen to folk, classical and even indie recordings of varying quality – one warped LP is suitably crackly – Ó Riada is a low-key but sparky foil to the host, whose deceptively easy-going style masks his deftness at gently steering the conversation.
As well as recalling his legendary composer father, Ó Riada mixes definite opinions – “There’s nothing sacred in music, except for those who have ghettoised versions of where everything should be” – with a dry sense of humour. “What’s your storage system?” O’Mahony asks at one stage. “Wherever there’s space,” the chuckling reply comes. Collectors everywhere will know the dilemma.
