It’s a phenomenon that often manifests itself as an irritating noise in the background, attracting complaints from people who hear it. So it seems fitting that Liveline (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) should be covering the nuisance caused by drones – game recognises game and all that.
Though, as recounted on Monday’s programme, the problem isn’t the whirring intrusiveness of the remote-controlled mini aircraft so much as the surly attitude of the people operating them – an accusation that can’t be levelled at Colm Ó Mongáin, its genial stand-in host.
The presenter hears from Geraldine, who describes being discomfited by a drone while walking near her home in the Burren, in Co Clare: “It sounded like a big mosquito.” She accordingly asked the man flying it from the ground to delete footage of her, only to be met by a profane term for excrement in a foreign tongue.
The exact language is left unspecified, though Ó Mongáin coyly states that it’s spoken by many tourists to the area.
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The confrontation escalated, with the septuagenarian Geraldine tugging the anorak sleeve of the taller man, who then, she says, picked her up by the armpits and threw her on the ground, before taking off in a car with his companions. “It knocked the stuffing out of me,” she says.
Though Geraldine was unhurt, it’s a shocking tale, the sort of experience that fits neatly into Liveline’s default hell-in-a-handcart template. Under Ó Mongáin’s stewardship, however, there are some welcome differences.
The presenter, normally heard on Radio 1’s nocturnal forum The Late Debate and his eponymous Saturday show, brings a lighter mood to proceedings than Joe Duffy. Rather than sigh with performative indignation, he is wryly curious, encouraging his hesitant caller to share her story while drolly describing the altercation as “asymmetrical warfare”.
Geraldine sounds more nonplussed than distressed, only appearing annoyed when other callers push back on her story. One contributor, Majella, suggests that Geraldine could be seen as the aggressor – “You can’t really afford to lay hands on anyone” – while Shay, a drone owner, says that people can’t expect privacy when in public.
Faced with this, Mongáin loses his touch, challenging Shay’s assertion with an outlandish scenario that would make Duffy blush: “What if someone’s on the witness-protection programme, and they can’t divulge why they want the footage deleted?”
Normal service is fully resumed by Tuesday, with the drone discussion aimlessly dragging on. Jacinta, a Dubliner, brings vim to her complaints about neighbours getting food delivered by air – “It’s like a scene from Minority Report” – while Mark, a farmer, worries about drones startling livestock, adding that some high-flyers are “out of the range of a shotgun”.
Legitimate as these concerns may be, they don’t translate into riveting radio. On Wednesday Ó Mongáin switches to more pressing matters: the Irish actor Pierce Brosnan’s performance in the TV drama MobLand. “There’s been a lot of online sledging of Brosnan’s Kerry accent,” the host says, signalling his intent to get in on the action.
But even the usually reliable topic of shonky onscreen Irish accents fails to generate much heat. The nearest thing to contention comes when Ó Mongáin gently corrects a caller that Sean Connery’s Soviet submarine captain in the film The Hunt for Red October isn’t Russian but Lithuanian. He may not fly drones, but the host is clearly a bit of a trainspotter.
Ó Mongáin finds his groove again, however: his laid-back style works to good effect during an unexpectedly absorbing discussion of the challenges of bringing a child with autism for a haircut.
With Duffy’s contract up for renewal this year, Ó Mongáin’s likeable on-air persona will surely see him spoken of as a potential successor should Liveline’s long-time host depart. (Katie Hannon’s equally strong performances as Duffy’s other regular sub would also put her in the frame.) It’s only speculation, of course, but at least it creates some buzz around the show.
When it comes to background noise, Kieran Cuddihy is all in favour of it, in certain settings anyway. The host of The Hard Shoulder (Newstalk, weekdays) talks to Henry McKean, the Newstalk reporter, about the decision by the singer David Gray to close the bar at his Dublin show to prevent audience chatter. “That sounds like a punishment,” Cuddihy says, chuckling.
His outrage only grows at the mention of trad musicians. “They’re always shushing people,” he says, gleefully decrying “the ciúnas brigade” and “trad-music Stasi” for curbing his rights: “You should be able to talk down the back of the pub.”
It’s surely only a matter of time before Cuddihy’s heartfelt free-speech absolutism attracts the support of Elon Musk.
In truth, it’s a good example of the host’s capacity for exuberantly irreverent humour. He also knows when a joke has run its course and when to focus his attention on more serious matters, such as his interview with Jim O’Callaghan. The Minister for Justice is plugging his draft asylum law, aimed at speeding up the processing of international protection applicants’ claims.
The discussion covers legal and technical aspects in useful detail, but Cuddihy is at his most terrier-like when dealing with O’Callaghan’s claim that most applications will be completed in three months.
“Why should people put any faith into that target?” the host asks, pointing to previous broken promises on housing and services. “This isn’t simply a target: it’ll be a legal requirement,” his guest bullishly replies. “But what if it doesn’t work?” Cuddihy responds, pointing out the legal obligations of Ireland’s climate-action legislation: “Lo and behold, we blew straight past them.”
O’Callaghan’s monotone self-assurance remains unshaken, however. He sounds offended when his host wonders if the tougher new rules are “the anti-migrant tail wagging the dog”. “I think that’s unfair,” the Minister says. Still, Cuddihy’s question highlights the fact that the experience of migrants hardly features in O’Callaghan’s pitch. It’s more expedient to drone on.
Moment of the week
One of the worst atrocities of the Troubles is gut-wrenchingly revisited on Tuesday’s Morning Ireland (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) when Audrey Carville talks to Alan Black, who was shot 18 times in the Kingsmill massacre of 1976, which saw his 10 fellow Protestant workmates murdered by a pseudonymous IRA unit.
With a Police Ombudsman’s report just published, Black is determined to get the truth about RUC collusion in the investigation – “We know there was an informer involved” – and speaks about his survivor’s guilt.
But his stoic tone changes as he remembers his 19-year-old apprentice, Robert Chambers, “a happy-go-lucky young lad” killed in the massacre. “My last memory of him was lying in the road, crying for his mammy, and him shot,” says Black, his voice slightly cracking. “And then a gunman came over and just shot him in the head. That will stay with me until the day I die.”
It sticks with the listener, too: the horrors of the Troubles should never be forgotten.
