Dogfighting for their political lives

RADIO REVIEW:LAST WEEKEND the airwaves crackled with insults and threats. Rival factions took swipes at each other against a backdrop of angry confrontations that at times spilled into physical aggression.

No, this was not the Smithfield horse fair: it was

Dogfight: Conor and Charlie

(RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday), a gripping portrait of the doomed election campaigns by the two erstwhile Fianna Fáil TDs for Dublin South West.

Part of the Documentary on One strand, Ciaran Cassidy’s programme followed Conor Lenihan and Charlie O’Connor – little love lost between them – as they canvassed in their working-class constituency, which has been badly hit by the downturn. Initially, the voters sounded disillusioned and weary: many spoke of their children emigrating. But as the programme went on the reactions became more pointed.

One man told O’Connor to get off his street: he would turf gangland figures such as the Viper out for selling drugs, the man shouted, so he was doing the same to a party that “supported corrupt bankers”. Lenihan encountered even more hostility. “If I had the money I’d buy you a ticket to Afghanistan,” heckled one voter. Another man ran out of his house to chase a canvasser away. “F*** off, get out of here,” he shouted. Later, Lenihan revealed that on another occasion a man had greeted his team brandishing a screwdriver.

“It’s every man and woman for themselves in this election,” said Lenihan. Sure enough, the running mates, who both seemed likeable if gormless, regarded each other with thinly veiled disdain. The internecine bickering was amusing, but when it came to his party’s responsibility for recent calamities, Lenihan displayed a startling blitheness. When one voter said that Fianna Fáil had made “a balls of the country” Lenihan replied that that was “very simplistic”.

“It’s attitudes like that that make us despise you,” came the calmly delivered retort.

As for the violence that marred last Sunday's fair in Smithfield, it was greeted in some Traveller quarters with a surprising sanguinity. Anyone wondering if the incident, in which two men were shot and another stabbed, was Traveller-related would have been alerted by Monday's news bulletin on Morning Ireland(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), which spoke of one victim being attacked by a slash hook. This implement has become as sure a knowing shorthand for Travellers as "welfare" has for African-Americans in the US.

But when, on Today with Pat Kenny(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), the indefatigable Paddy O'Gorman tracked down the family of one of the injured men at a halting site in Offaly, the atmosphere was far removed from the stereotypical one of seething vendetta. The father of the wounded man sounded measured, saying the shot was intended for someone from "a different clan"; his son had only been "in the firing line". He was now worried that the perpetrators would seek his family out and shoot them in case they spoke to the Garda, though no gardaí had yet visited the site.

The Travellers conformed to O’Gorman’s description as “friendly but cautious”. The only overt flicker of emotion came when it came to the fate of the fair: “I’d be heartbroken if Smithfield closed,” said one man. But, discussing feuds with Kenny afterwards, O’Gorman painted a bleak picture of the culture he says lies behind such reticence. A Traveller must never back down for fear of losing face, he said, “so the ability to use fists is highly prized”.

There is no such reticence on the part of the Dublin band Aslan, who admit their past is pockmarked by fistfights aplenty. "We used to batter each other," singer Christy Dignam cheerily told Miriam O'Callaghan(Miriam Meets, RTÉ Radio 1, Sunday). As Dignam and his fellow band member Billy McGuinness looked back on Aslan's career since the 1980s, such Bash Street Kids moments made for an enjoyable show – if you could endure the odd acoustic power ballad.

Aslan were caught up in the delusional gold-rush frenzy of Dublin’s 1980s rock scene. Signed to a major label, they were derailed by Dignam’s heroin addiction and international indifference, though the latter was barely alluded to. The singer spoke openly about his drug problems, which he said were rooted in childhood sexual abuse. His frankness was accompanied by some cookie-cutter wisdom, such as the old chestnut that “I’d consider myself spiritual rather than religious.”

That said, he also had the realism of a world-weary veteran. We may condemn politicians for getting us in a mess, Dignam said, “but we put them there for 14 years, so we have to bear some responsibility”. It was a more honest statement of personal accountability than anything heard on Cassidy’s documentary. Little wonder politicians attract fighting talk.

Radio moment of the week

Last Monday, when the veteran broadcaster Brendan Balfe appeared on The John Murray Show(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), it was a discomfiting experience, by turns poignant and snippy. Having worked at RTÉ since he was 18, Balfe had to leave last September, when he reached retirement age. "It's not unfair to say I was heartbroken," he said. "I love the organisation, so to suddenly have it summarily stopped because I was 65 was traumatic."

Having been loyal to RTÉ, he was disappointed it did not continue to use him as a freelancer, like Gay Byrne. So Balfe got a dig in at the broadcaster now. “It’s got very earnest,” he said. “It’s self-importance more than anything.” Indeed.