Radio Review: Oh, tragic radio week, with one of the State's favourite on-air performers locked up in Mountjoy, and not even the usual presenter of Tonight with Vincent Browne (RTÉ Radio 1, Monday to Thursday) present to talk about him. Browne's one-week replacement, Shane Kenny, with his strictly-business view of journalism, was scarcely the man to eulogise Socialist TD Joe Higgins, writes Harry Browne.
But lo, there was the presenter of Liveline (RTÉ Radio 1, Monday to Friday), only weeks after being labelled a "free-market demagogue" in this very column, providing a riveting, airwave-shaking platform not merely for Higgins's family, friends and supporters, but also for the next wave of bin-charge resisters, even as they waited outside the courtroom on Tuesday. Joe Duffy did try to get some balance on the show, but, populist that he is, he noted how other media outlets had missed the significance of the Higgins story, underestimating the level of sympathy for the Trotskyist politician.
Higgins's evident popularity gives lie to the notion that radio success is all about warmth and intimacy. Even his obvious honesty and quick-wittedness are in the service of a verbal style that is insistently oratorical - here is a man speaking to the multitudes, not the proverbial one to one. When, on the eve of his expected imprisonment last week, Higgins was pressed by Vincent Browne for his feelings about the prospect of jail, the TD evaded the question's emotional content and returned to his familiar rhetoric about the need to represent his constituents. One of the many intriguing "what happens next?" issues is whether that tone will change in the coming weeks - will, for instance, this State's prisoners gain a powerful new advocate, whose language is all the more resonant for its overtones of bitter experience? Even some of the bin tax's more honest advocates could be heard admitting on various programmes, albeit parenthetically, that in Ireland today the tax is inequitably distributed. But the protesters' arguments clearly transcend the charges. The overriding impression, from Liveline particularly, was of class politics announcing: "We haven't gone away, you know." Suddenly the air was full of phrases such as "we have to either stand up and be counted or lie down and be mounted".
Callers referred to the ACRA anti-rates struggle of decades past and, further back, to the Lockout. Patriotic phrases of praise tumbled out in two languages. It was no surprise, a listener declared, that the Sunday Independent had attacked Higgins - sure, hadn't William Martin Murphy and the Independent demanded James Connolly's execution? The caller's conclusion? "Black cat, black kittens." There are definitely still many cats going around who aren't from the Celtic Tiger's litter.
But how far out of touch are mainstream commentators? Consider Olivia O'Leary, whose weekly "column" has returned to Five Seven Live (RTÉ Radio 1, Monday to Friday). Her theme this week was the "warrior tradition" in politics. She mused upon the popularity of politicians who have displayed physical courage at some point in their careers. She wasn't talking only about old soldiers and revolutionaries; indeed, she opened this little chat by stretching the category, to the point marked "cobblers", with a paean to Rudy Giuliani and his alleged 9/11 heroics. Even Bertie Ahern's love of football was enlisted in evidence to support O'Leary's claim that strong, brave men win voters' hearts (I kid you not). Surely the punchline here was going to be about Joe Higgins, the TD who had put his freedom on the line on a point of principle, who was stuck in a cell even as O'Leary droned across the airwaves? Uh, no. Dublin's leading class warrior was apparently not relevant, even subliminally, allusively, to whatever point she may have been making.
The death a couple of weeks back of musical warrior Warren Zevon was still being marked on the late drivetime slot occupied by Dave Fanning (2FM, Monday to Friday). Fanning played Disorder in the House from Zevon's posthumous album. The song, with Bruce Springsteen roaring harmonies and flailing on the guitar, was aptly described by the presenter as "bitter political commentary" about the state of the US on a permanent war footing.
Although for pure music I'd prefer John Kelly's Mystery Train (RTÉ Radio 1, Tuesday to Friday) or Karl Tsigdinos's majestic River of Soul (Today FM, Sunday), Fanning's programme is a formula whose time has come (again): semi-serious talk about pop and rock culture, mixed with tunes. Introducing Sinéad O'Connor's heart-ripping revision of Aretha Franklin's Do-Right Woman, Fanning read a couple of lines from a review, words of insight designed to get us to listen all the more carefully. It was no substitute for Joe Higgins, but the words and the song combined to make fantastic, goosebumpy, catch-your-breath radio.