It wasn't a great week for censorship in practice - with Dublin magazine sailing profitably through a legal loophole. In theory, however, it was plain all over the airwaves that the impulse to censor remains powerful here, years after the end of the absurdities and horrors of section 31 and the abortion-information ban.
In the midst of these strange and sudden social paroxysms about alleged obscenity and the workings of the sex industry, it would have been useful to hear the issues digested more thoroughly - if not more quietly - by Vincent Browne, with his grasp of, and commitment to, civil liberties. However, all this row coincides with so-called silly season (mere coincidence? . . .), so no Tonight with Himself at bedtime.
Instead, the best I heard on the subject - and it wasn't all that good - was on The Last Word (Today FM, Monday to Friday): Navan Man and the Drunken Politician giggling their way through a sketch about the pricey health studio adverts NM was soliciting for In Nobber.
Still, no complaints: bedtime on RTE Radio 1 has yielded other pleasures. This week, P. J. Curtis's excellent Roots of Rock 'n' Roll yielded to a new six-parter in which writer John MacKenna waxes lyrical about favourite songwriters.
That's Songpeople (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Thursday), and it's a far cry from Curtis's historical approach or Joe Jackson's often-fascinating mix of sociology and biography on People Get Ready (RTE Radio 1, Friday). In fact, MacKenna doesn't even have much to say about music; instead, in Wednesday's programme about country singer Guy Clark, he ruminated lovingly about a lyric or two ("Whoever said the hand is quicker than the eye/ Has never tried to wipe away a tear"), shared the odd related personal insight, then played a song.
Wednesday's show got nicely inside MacKenna's relationship with Clark's songs, though Clark himself was scarcely dented. Introducing Boats to Build, MacKenna asked: "Can't you just picture himself and Raymond Carver sailing out to sea?" Well, no, I can't. While Carver doesn't deserve to be associated with Robert Altman's cynicism in Short Cuts, he might find himself at least shifting starboard if forced to share a skiff with Clark's romanticism.
Deirdre Purcell surely shifted in her seat, and silently thanked God for the CD player, while surviving a quarter-hour with stoical country star Don Williams. Purcell must surely be tiring of the dubious joys of a morning show with her name on it (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Friday), especially when the likes of Williams fills the studio with dead air.
It started promisingly enough. Williams, a Texan like Guy Clark, has a gorgeous speaking voice, redolant of bourbon; it wasn't long, however, before thickening to the fluidity of molasses. Who are Don's influences? Silence. Then Deirdre broke the spell: "Gene Autry?" and laughed with more than a hint of nervousness.
When Williams did manage a sentence, it was with killing deliberation, such as: "I haven't spent much time addressing the proverbial triangle situation."
When Purcell wound her way to the end of the interview, she introduced what she'd learned is Williams's favourite piece of music, Percy French's theme from A Summer Place. The Texan's voice was suddenly flooded with warmth and relief: "Well, bless your heart," he oozed, and I think he really meant it.
There was no failure to communicate on The Musical Side of the Family (BBC Radio 4, Wednesday), an unintentionally funny appreciation of Neil Hannon of the Divine Comedy ("one of Northern Ireland's top bands") the Beeb continuity guy said).
The appreciator was none other than the Right Rev Brian Hannon, Bishop of Clogher, aka Neil's dad. Suddenly, all the cliches, truisms and sentimentality that Neil makes sound highly postmodern and ironic could be traced, hierarchically as it were, to the paternal root.
"We're both communicators, we're both in the public eye," the bishop said - though with Neil, him being a pop star and all, "you don't know how he's going to exercise his ministry." Unpredictability, you felt, would never be counted among the Right Rev's foibles. As for how the bishop absorbs potentially controversial filial outpourings such as Generation Sex: "I soon realised that he was saying many things that need to be said." Good lad, Neil.
No, Radio 4 will never be "Radio Phwaarrr", as lamely joked on The Wilde- beest Years (Tuesday) - featuring French Letter from America and Woman's 30 Seconds. But, by God, the serious, well resourced documentary on an international topic will too rarely have another home.
The latest case to hand is Land and Freedom (BBC Radio 4, Tuesday) with Grant Ferrett examining the success or otherwise of agrarian reform in Zimbabwe. The story was of a rural population poorer than before the nation's independence, of privileges maintained, of bureaucracy interfering with successful operations while failing to address widespread failure. Along the way, it was the story of a president, Robert Mugabe, prepared to throw the process into disarray with the tactical employment of populist rhetoric that seems to defy the legal niceties of the reform programme.
And it was all there, harnessed with technical finesse: voices of farmers, workers, Mugabe. In the end, a harassed white farmer rose to heights of optimism about the future, and most programmes would have ended there. But here the tape rolled on, and we heard his wife muttering: "He's always hopeful. Forever hopeful - it'll be written on his gravestone."