Radio: ‘Cover their little ears’: Mooney grows up with adult content

Just as an "adult bookshop" oddly contains more picture books than any children's library, so a warning that a programme is of "a strictly adult nature" rarely heralds, say, a mature discussion about ethics in public life, but rather something of a more lewd bent. So it came as a jolt when Derek Mooney (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) cautioned his audience in those very terms about an item on Tuesday's show. For all that Mooney laces his patter with coy references and saucy asides, he has never seemed one for the wilfully explicit.

Yet here he was, advising listeners with children to "cover their little ears" and those "of a sensitive nature" to switch to 2FM. But anyone getting sweaty-palmed at what was in prospect would have been disappointed. Although rich in prurient potential, Mooney's interview with Timara Lawless, a 50-year-old "intersex" individual who was born as both a male and a female, was anything but arousing. Whether the item was gratuitous was another matter.

Lawless’s story was, to say the least, different. Classed as a male at birth – he was named Timmy – he started to grow breasts while at his local Christian Brothers school, predictably attracting much bullying. But it wasn’t until Lawless got a girlfriend that “I realised her bits were like mine”.

The conversation then took an abrupt turn into bleaker territory. Lawless, who had previously been married, spoke about leading a lonely life: “People will accept you for a while, but then something changes.” Mooney’s guest then told of a recent operation to get rid of tumours: “I had to lose my male bits.” If this bald statement drew a collective wince from at least half of the audience, the next revelation was more distressing.

Lawless, who is now deemed a female (she was born with a vagina, which was hidden behind testicles for years), failed to get the hormone replacement treatment required after such a procedure. This resulted in “an overnight menopause” that brought on severe depression. “Within five weeks of the operation I was parked up by the train tracks in Wicklow, ready to kill myself.” It was only the thought of leaving her 18-year-old daughter bereaved that caused Lawless to pull back.

There was no denying the impact of this tale, nor the emotional honesty of the teller. But one wondered whether Mooney’s show, with its underlying air of quirky cosiness, was the best forum for such raw material. Lawless had no such doubts. “I’m doing this to make it easier for other people,” she said, adding that “this is never about being kinky or about sex”. In the end, Mooney, who has also been tackling issues such as civil partnership and gay marriage of late, deserved credit for allowing a sympathetic space for a true outsider to tell their story. But maybe next time he should avoid flagging things in such a titillating style.

Another self-described outsider provided the subject of the Documentary On One: The Garda Who Limped (RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday), though in this case the content was more obviously in the public interest. Produced by Robert Mulhern with Ronan Kelly, the documentary focused on John Wilson, the garda whistleblower who revealed the scandal of penalty points being expunged in irregular circumstances. Rather than go through the details of the wider affair, the programme sought to find out what prompted Wilson to leak the revelations to the Independent TD Clare Daly: was he "a serial whinger" or something more noble?

There was evidence that Wilson was not a team player: by his own admission, he was stubborn and obsessive. Suffering from a skin allergy, he had previously agitated vocally for the right to grow a beard. As a plain-clothes officer, he had been reprimanded for discharging a firearm during a robbery incident, and later returned to uniform, telling his superiors to “stuff it up their behinds”.

Yet when it came to his rationale for leaking the penalty-points malpractice, Wilson came across less as a maverick than as a principled conformist. Arguing that the dubious quashing of such penalties “undermined the authority of individual members of the Garda Síochána”, he initially filed a complaint to his superiors. Only after months of official silence, he said, did he go public.

As well as having a rat nailed to his door, Wilson paid professionally for his act. Excluded from using the Garda computer system, he felt sidelined and harassed to the point that he “couldn’t take it any more”. After taking stress-related sick leave, he resigned last year, a fact that he was bitter about. “I had done nothing wrong,” he said, his voice shaking. “I had reported corruption, for Christ’s sake.”

In the light of this week's Dáil committee testimony on the issue by Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan, it was a timely documentary, leaving the impression of a force that prizes loyalty above all other considerations. The programme was not without flaws, however, from an occasionally jarring jauntiness to the gliding over of the precise circumstances behind Wilson's departure (which is, admittedly, the subject of a High Court case). But with its compelling personal story and its wider implications, The Garda Who Limped was radio for grown-ups.

radioreview@irishtimes.com