For all his strengths as a current-affairs broadcaster, whooping it up isn’t a characteristic one normally associates with Matt Cooper. Yet there he is, glugging wine and playing cards during Tuesday’s edition of The Last Word (Today FM, weekdays). Fans of Cooper’s steady style need not fret, however: he hasn’t gone full gonzo. In fact, his items on wine tasting and tarot reading only underline his sensibly inquisitive instincts, even if he comes across as slightly more unbuttoned than usual.
Cooper certainly sounds as if he’s enjoying himself when the sommelier (and regular guest) Brigid O’Hora arrives with a selection of organic and biodynamic wines to taste. “For me anyway,” the host clarifies, a tad too smugly. While asking about these winemaking methods, Cooper reveals himself to be something of an oenophile, talking confidently about the pepper flavours of an Austrian bottle. “Look at you, you are a natural,” O’Hora replies, clearly impressed.
The presenter sounds less comfortable as the novelist Noëlle Harrison outlines the background to her latest book, The Tarot Reader of Versailles, written under the pen name Anya Bergman. Harrison explains how the cards, which seemingly originated as a storytelling game in Renaissance Italy, act as “tools of support and self-awareness”, adding that reading Cooper’s tarot cards would be “a blueprint of your subconscious”.
The inherently sceptical host occasionally sounds facetious – “Is it the summoning of spirits beyond the grave?” – but for the most part is curious about his guest’s esoteric interests, to the listener’s benefit.
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Although Cooper may not possess the temperament of a fortune teller, he’s happy to read the runes on the future of the Coalition. Following the suggestion by Minister for Higher Education James Lawless, of Fianna Fáil, that third-level registration fees could go back up to €3,000 a year, the host is gleeful as he discusses the resultant tensions between the Government parties. “This shouldn’t have come as a surprise to Fine Gael,” Cooper crows. “James Lawless said as much to us months ago on this programme.”
His interview with Fine Gael’s education spokesperson, Maeve O’Connell, does little to cool the simmering row as she restates her party’s commitment to reducing student fees. “The reality is if the fees go up,” the deputy reiterates, “that is not what anyone would have expected from a commitment in the programme for government.”
As this is the same programme promising an increase in homebuilding, it mightn’t be that big a surprise, a point the host makes in roundabout fashion: “What I’m hearing from a lot of people is that a much bigger issue is the cost of student accommodation, which is a multiple of their fees each year.” O’Connell sidesteps addressing this inconvenient observation, but as Cooper’s quietly lethal approach indicates, the omens for Government harmony don’t look promising. It all depends where the cards fall.
Elsewhere, Today with Claire Byrne (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) covers the news that the former swimming coach George Gibney has been arrested in the United States on foot of a Garda extradition request for alleged historical child sex-abuse offences. This move has largely been prompted by fresh allegations made against the ex-Olympic coach on the BBC podcast Where Is George Gibney?, as Byrne notes when she talks to Mark Horgan, the podcast’s presenter and producer. Horgan calls the news “hugely significant” and commends the resilience of those survivors who spoke of the abuse they suffered, while choosing his words carefully, conscious of the legal proceedings afoot.
But aside from the vile acts Gibney is accused of, the interview is interesting in its insights on the way podcasts have not only changed how audio content is consumed but also enabled it to yield real-world effects. “This is something that’s really remarkable about the medium,” says Horgan. The open-ended format of the series meant that survivors affected by early episodes could contact both the producers and the police.
“It wasn’t something we were trying to turn around quickly, with short soundbites,” Horgan says, “Obviously with journalism it’s really difficult to get the opportunity to do that, but we were afforded that time.” As changes wrought by online platforms are often presented as harbingers of doom, it’s an encouraging aspect, even if the podcast’s contents are harrowing.
Crimes of unimaginable horror are the focus of another series aimed at the podcast market, but this time also aired on radio. Stolen Sister (RTÉ Radio 1, Friday), produced by the Documentary on One team, tells the story of the abduction, rape and murder of two young women, Elizabeth Plunkett and Mary Duffy, at the hands of two serial killers, Geoffrey Evans and John Shaw, in 1976. Those are the basic, sickening facts. But the series, narrated by Roz Purcell, not only traces the sequence of events that saw two English ex-convicts embark on an unspeakable crime spree but also, more pertinently, puts the focus on the women they brutally killed.
Accordingly, much of the tale is told through the lens of the Plunkett siblings in particular, who recall their growing dread after Elizabeth went missing in Co Wicklow. But, equally, they remind us that their sister was a real person of independent spirit, not some preordained victim: “She read Cosmo and she had notions.” Similarly, Purcell’s plainly delivered narration underscores that these were ordinary women with hopes and dreams, their lives mercilessly ended by Evans and Shaw, whose murderous lack of empathy makes the term psychopathic seem far too kind.
There is a bitter sting in the tale. “Unbelievably, no one has ever been found guilty of Elizabeth’s murder, despite both Shaw and Evans confessing to everything,” Purcell says. Such moments make for contemporary resonance – Shaw is still alive and in prison – while emphasising how the Documentary on One strand has become RTÉ’s most adept podcast creator. The team also produced the series Where Is Jón?, which reinvigorated the ongoing investigation into the disappearance of an Icelandic poker player, Jón Jónsson, in 2019.
[ Jón Jónsson disappearance: Gardaí interview almost 60 people in IcelandOpens in new window ]
Whether these podcasts can yield justice remains to be seen. But whether the embattled national broadcaster can replicate such mastery of the online medium across the network will surely have a bearing on its fortunes.
Moment of the week
As the post-Joe Duffy era of Liveline (RTÉ Radio 1) begins on Monday, Philip Boucher-Hayes requests that listeners “be kind” as he assumes the role of guest host. However, as callers complain about the mooted increases in college fees, the presenter – previously a regular Liveline stand-in – maintains an unflappable mien. But as the show draws to a close, he suddenly sounds alarmed. “God, I’m very badly over time,” Boucher-Hayes laments. “I’m very bad on this first day of the job.”
He then takes an ad break, which further gobbles up airtime belonging to his Radio 1 colleague Ray D’Arcy. “I am in such trouble,” Boucher-Hayes ruefully remarks. Should he be a contender in the race to replace Duffy, he’s not off to an auspicious start.
