It’s the day after the Oscars, and there can only be one topic of discussion with which to start Monday’s Liveline (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays).
Sure enough, no sooner has the show’s new – and still underwhelming – theme tune played out than talk turns to Kerry’s brightest star, as Kieran Cuddihy invites callers to share their thoughts on this global icon of the kingdom: “Tell me what you’ve noticed about the taste of Kerrygold.”
Jessie Buckley may have won an Academy Award the night before, but for Cuddihy the Killarney actor’s triumph pales into insignificance beside the urgent matter of the supposedly changing nature of Ireland’s premier butter brand.
Indeed, if callers are to believed, even Kerrygold pales into insignificance beside its older self. Cuddihy’s speaker, Mick, insists that the butter now has a far more pallid hue compared with the richly yellow product of old. Even more contentiously, he thinks the texture and flavour have of late resembled those of margarine. People have been burned at the stake for less blasphemous statements.
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It’s a purely subjective view, of course. “Kerrygold, for what it’s worth, say nothing has changed,” Cuddihy notes. But other callers concur that the brand isn’t what it used to be. Cormac, a former chef, says that in recent years he uses 30 per cent more of the famed butter in his recipe for chicken-liver pate, suggesting to him that the product contains less fat than it used to: “The constituent fat in the butter is what gives the firmness to the pate,” he explains.
Such nuggets of gastronomic science aside, it soon becomes apparent that this particular dairy item is spread way too thin, and Cuddihy wraps up proceedings in short order. Not that he’s above milking an issue if it can yield some tasty controversy, as underlined by Wednesday’s programme.
Moving quickly to dispel any lingering feelgood factor in the aftermath of St Patrick’s Day (and indeed Buckley’s Oscar win), the host hears stories of an alarming Jeffrey Epstein-themed float that participated in several parades around Mayo and Galway, featuring a re-enactment of a young woman being sexually attacked on a mattress.
Cuddihy is rightly scandalised. “The whole butt of the joke here was the sexual assault of teenagers,” he says bluntly. “It’s a rape float. There’s no other way to describe it.”
His verdict is shared by his callers. “It’s not a bit of craic; it’s extremely upsetting,” says Bernie, who witnessed the float in the Ballinrobe parade.
Another caller, Rose, tries to frame it in the context of the toxic online manosphere: “Hopefully some conversation can happen around this.”
Some conversation duly ensues, though not always to edifying effect. Andrew, who was involved in one parade featuring the offensive float, expresses distaste but also sounds an exculpatory note in the face of Cuddihy’s irritated questions: “It’s very easy to be a hurler on the ditch.”
Tempers begin to flare. Darragh, who hasn’t seen footage of the float, wants a Garda investigation, even angrily interrupting another caller who takes a slightly more indulgent, if still dubious, view of the whole matter.
Cuddihy reprimands Darragh for “shouting down” the conversation, even as the host’s own voice rises a few notches in the process.
Similarly, noble though his desire is for callers to display “emotional intelligence”, the longer the discussion continues – and it continues for the entire programme – the more the returns diminish, as the seriousness of the subject gets drowned out amid an angry cacophony.
For all the justifiable outrage of callers, the pacy, heightened atmosphere that Cuddihy fosters leaves little room for meaningful insight. (A notable exception is the late contribution from Karina Molloy, who has written about the sexual abuse she experienced in the Army: “I find it very triggering,” she says of the float.) Churning out indignation is one thing, but it can turn sour after a while.
For all that, events on St Patrick’s Day provide some cause for celebration – or relief, at any rate – on The Claire Byrne Show (Newstalk, weekdays). With the annual White House shamrock ceremony having been transformed from backslapping beano to white-knuckled ordeal under the erratic Trump 2.0 presidency, the host hears how Taoiseach Micheál Martin emerged unscathed from the potentially hazardous meeting in which the US president criticised Europe.
Speaking to Byrne, Minister of State Timmy Dooley praises the Taoiseach for gently dissenting from Trump’s assertions – “He calmed a situation that could have turned into an unnecessary brouhaha” – while the Social Democrats TD Sinéad Gibney thinks he should have criticised US and Israeli attacks on Iran.
One doesn’t need to condone Trump’s actions to agree with the opinion that Martin did pretty well in dealing with the capricious US president, even if Dooley’s description of his party leader accomplishing this “in a carefully curated way” makes the fraught encounter sound more like a boutique arts festival.
The unequivocally good news of Buckley’s Oscars success is also covered with gusto. Jonathan Healy, sitting in for Byrne on Monday’s programme, speaks to the Newstalk reporter Henry McKean, who’s at the awards ceremony. As well as hoping to access the glitzy aftershow parties – “I seem to have the right pass for getting into places,” the intrepid correspondent chirps – McKean hears the Hollywood insider Harry Medved laud Buckley for winning over academy members: “She’s shaken a lot of hands, she’s kissed a lot of babies.”
That she has also turned in a memorable cinema performance seems a less important factor, but it’s a telling comment on the whole shebang nonetheless.
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A more straightforwardly jubilant air pervades Josh Crosbie’s report from Buckley’s hometown, with the actor’s uncle Seán still on a high from events: “We never could have imagined a night like last night.”
The prevailing good spirits are so infectious that even the reporter sounds elated. “It’s given the whole town, county and, let’s face it, the country a lift,” Crosbie says to Healy. “Just what we need on a Monday morning.”
In these grim times Buckley’s win is like solid gold. If only that were always the case.
Moment of the week
Contentious parades aside, St Patrick’s Day brings joy with the broadcast of We’ll Always Be Shouting for You: The Story of the Frank and Walters (RTÉ Gold), Paul McDermott’s affectionate documentary about the cult indie band from Cork.
Largely concentrating on the group’s first years, in the early 1990s, the programme intersperses interviews with the band members Niall Linehan and Ashley Keating with readings of early reviews from local media.
There’s much minutiae about Cork’s musical ecosystem of the time, but these contributions help create a fittingly enthusiastic and idiosyncratically unpolished portrait of a band who, to quote the journalist Stuart Bailie, always had a “pocket reserve of happiness”, encapsulated by their signature song, After All.
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And, happily, they’re still going: the documentary ends with the band’s triumphant hometown gig in December 2025. As Linehan ruefully comments: “If I was to get a job in the morning, I’d be s**t at everything.”
Who cares when you’re that good at one thing?
