Don't mention the war

THAT bloody film refuses to go quiet. Any hopes that there would be a dramatic drop in hype for Michael Collins after last week's predictable peak were scuppered by the first item on yesterday's Today with Pat Kenny (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Friday), a vox pop with members of a Belfast audience.

The item was unusual, in that a couple of people who were praising the film cited its political resonances for today. By and large, that vast majority of Irish commentators who are defending Michael Collins are adopting what one would have thought was a bizarre critical stance that it is invalid to look for contemporary significance in it.

Aine Lawlor's exclusive interview with Neil Jordan on Thursday's Morning Ireland (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Friday) found the director essentially taking the same position as his supporters, dismissing claims that Michael Collins is making political points for 1996.

He's entitled to say this, obviously. However, it seems to contradict an item in the New York Observer newspaper last month, in which columnist Terry Golway chided Anglophile US critics for not "getting" the message of Michael Collins. In the column, Golway interviews Jordan, who seems to agree with him.

Asked whether the film is saying the British government should talk to Gerry Adams, Jordan is quoted as replying: "Of course, it's the reason for making the movie." He goes on to say that the IBA should also stop using violence.

Perhaps wee shouldn't read too much into this Jordan has been quoted out of context before. However, since this dual position talks with Sinn Fein, an end to violence is shared by the sensible majority of people here, why are people in Ireland loath to ascribe it to Michael Collins?

Meanwhile, Conal Creedon - the man who has added metafiction to Munster's lunchtime diet - has joined the fray to scoop, most unexpectedly, the prize for maddest Cork contribution to the Collins debate. Creedon's comic soap, Under the Goldie Fish (RTE Radio Cork), travels to Beal na mBlath, August 22nd, 1922.

The medium for this extraordinary journey? A dodgy timer on the washing machine sucks Maggie, Tosser and George into a time space "vortex". (Imagine Des O'Malley emphatically saying "vortex!" and you have some ideal of the comic impact of George's accent.) Having arrived in old Cork, accompanied by stirring mood music, they enter a Patrick Street pub, straight out of Hollywood, where the staff and patrons; begin every charming sentence with "Is it the way that you'd be wantin' . . ."

Meanwhile, Michael Collins rides to Beal na mBlath, writing in echo chamber baritone to "my dearest Kit", confiding his intention to legalise divorce, contraception and freedom of choice for women - and to make Dev Tanaiste. After much agonising, and in spite of Maggie's Fianna Fail sympathies, our heroes try to save Collins from the ambush - at the very moment someone back in 1996 switches off the washing machine and whisks them from the scene.

Adrian Smyth and Richard Herriott, an old Anna Livia team, brought their metafictional devices to bear on Irony? (RTE Radio 1, Thursday), essentially an essay on the over abundance of the ironic tone in our lives. Unfortunately, the interviews - with the Mike Flowers Pops, a freely juxtaposing DJ, a bad movie buff and one of the architects of the ILAC Centre did little to add any coherence to the programme's ideas. Ironically appropriate?

Is "ironic" the adjective which describes the fact that the world's, most powerful politician has just been reelected by a minority of a minority? The RTE newsroom seemed in little doubt about who was to blame for this state of affairs: the lazy, apathetic non voters themselves, of course.

The less than objective headline on Wednesday's News at One (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Friday) told us that "less than half... bothered to vote". Those awful old Yanks they don't know how lucky they are to have a choice of Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. Oh, and Ross Perot!

Morning Ireland addressed the question a bit more adequately on Wednesday morning, Richard Crowley in Washington even spoke to veteran consumer advocate and failed Green candidate Ralph Nader. Those few of us Morning Ireland listeners who had been watching the BBC in the more wee hours of the morning may have noticed some similarity between Crowley's interviewees and David Dimbleby's guests, but if such serendipity gets results, more power to him.