RADIO REVIEW:JUST WHEN you thought it was safe to discuss matters of sexuality on live radio . . . He's back! Ryan Tubridy, that most recession-proof of broadcasters, had a bumpy landing on The Tubridy Show(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays).
On Monday, he interviewed young gay people about growing up gay. A recent report said homophobic bullying in schools is widespread. These reports are crucial in helping to raise awareness on this issue, and fair play to Tubridy for covering it, but saying that homophobic bullying is widespread is a bit like saying that students smoke behind the bicycle shed.
Addy, who went to school in west Dublin, said he experienced a lot of abuse when he was a student. “I knew I was gay since I was about 12,” he said. “I never didn’t think I was gay.” Tubridy asked, “Twelve is very young. How did you know you were gay?” Addy seemed perplexed, but in a good-humoured sort of way. “I always knew I was gay, kind of like a straight person always knew they were straight.”
It got better. Tubridy said, “Before then did you think that you were equipped mentally and emotionally to know that you might be gay?” Addy responded, “Did you find that you were mentally equipped to be heterosexual when you were 12?” Tubridy said, “Yes, I danced with all the girls at the parties between three and six.” To which Addy replied, “I did too, but I didn’t really enjoy it,” and then he said some of the most important words uttered on the radio this week: “My sexuality was never an issue with me. My sexuality was always an issue with other people.”
On Moncrieff(Newstalk, weekdays) that same day, Henry McKean shadowed Ireland's so-called paparazzi as they did another stake-out of pop target Britney Spears. A rare female among this pack said a picture could be worth €20,000 because it could be sent all over the world. She said punters would be happy with a shot of her shopping. Another male photographer, with dollar signs in his eyes and euro signs in his heart, said, "She's not going to go wild." They waited and waited and waited. In the meantime they should take a few self-portraits and tell us what they see.
The national debate over hospital cutbacks became even more surreal on Wednesday's Lunchtime(Newstalk, weekdays). Solicitor Gerald Kean went to Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin to see for himself the conditions of staff and patients.
Kean’s own involvement sprung from the HSE’s “open minds” communications policy, where the HSE invited commentators to ask them questions. Oh, boy. They didn’t realise the whirlwind of self-publicity they unleashed with La Kean.
He went to Crumlin’s AE “without prior appointment”, which at least is how people usually go there. “I was shocked and surprised by what I learnt during the four or five hours while I was there,” he told Eamon Keane. He met a nurse called Gráinne with a “bead of perspiration on her forehead”. Still, he did make the good point that Crumlin is the last port of call for many. “There is no move-on for many acute patients,” he said.
Ireland's reputation for treating the poor and vulnerable with callous disregard once again raised its ugly head in Peter Woods's Documentary On One: This Is Maria Macrae(RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday). Born in 1986 to an Irish mother with learning difficulties who went on to have nine children, Maria spent her childhood in foster homes in England. Her mother left her with her sister Sammy in Carlisle and went back to Ireland when Maria was two. When she turned 18, she went in search of her family.
Meanwhile, Maria’s brother Joseph, who has learning difficulties, was left by authorities in a flat with a man mistakenly listed in official documents as his father, and years later was reunited with Maria’s aunt in Dublin. By then, Joseph had head lice and vomited black fluid, due to a diet of Coca Cola. The answers to how this was let happen, along with his files, are still missing.
After Maria’s exhaustive search to find and subsequently have access to her family – one that is still frustrated by the lack of help from authorities here – the closest she got to her mother again was at her funeral.
“On what level does somebody decide we’re just going to tell you we don’t know where she is,” Maria said, her voice soft and low, ringing of sadness rather than anger.
“How can anyone take that decision away from you that you’re not going to meet her? And then there’s nothing you can do to put it right because it’s too late.”
Makes you proud to be Irish, doesn’t it?
qfottrell@irishtimes.com