A joyous moment

PRESENT TENSE:I LIKE THE Angelus. Not the religious ritual itself, but the idea behind the television Angelus as now propagated by its supporters and by RTÉ.

It’s nice that (particularly at 6pm) the nation gets a moment to take a breath, compose itself and let its thoughts drift, just before the news arrives to give you a slap in the head and tell you to stop daydreaming.

The Angelus was revamped this week, with RTÉ referring to it as a “moment of grace and peace”. It says this primarily as an excuse for the slot’s continued presence on television. In reality, RTÉ has no interest in providing a moment of grace and peace in the day. What it is instead doing is avoiding an argument. It is far easier to keep the Angelus on radio and TV, while deflecting the weak barbs of secularists, than it is to take it away and face the wrath of the Catholic foot soldiers.

But there’s a lack of conviction about its justification. The “grace and peace” statement is just another way of saying that it’s a bit of Catholicism everyone can enjoy. Nonsense. You’re either in or you’re out. The public broadcaster is funded by taxes paid by people of all religions and none, so to put the Angelus on a couple of times a day is sectarian and everyone knows it. It’s a Catholic ritual and a relic of a previous Ireland. Some pensive imagery doesn’t change that.

The argument that its ratings merit its continued existence don't hold up either. The Angelus averages over 300,000 viewers, and no doubt there is a small but significant number of true followers. But I'd be willing to bet that most of those watching the Angelus at 6pm are tuning in for the Six One news. The Angelus, as such, has become the hold music of a nation. A pealing equivalent to The Four Seasons. Bong. Bong. Bong.

Please hold; Bryan Dobson will be with you shortly.

And yet, if the justification for (if not the reality of) the Angelus is drifting in the direction of grace and peace rather than devotion to Mary, why not follow that logic to its conclusion? Why not instead create a minute that can be inclusive and uplifting and calm and all those things, without spoiling it by making it exclusively Catholic? Because it is nice that there are a couple of minutes during the day when RTÉ television and radio does something that other broadcasters do not.

Especially given that it preceeds the news, a programme from which grace and calm are barred.

So the first suggestion would be to actually add an extra slot to give us a minute just before the 9 o’clock news bulletin; a minute to take a deep breath, to steel yourself for whatever’s about to hit us in the headlines.

But what to replace it with? There’s the danger that, denuded of its religious anchor, it would be replaced by some New Agey thing – waterfalls and birdsong and panpipes. You know, the kind of thing massage therapists play in order to help you relax, but which in fact gradually fill you with the urge to jump up, scream and run, half-naked, from the room while pulling at your ears.

Silence, on the other hand, could be very useful for television — a medium that occasionally lets pictures tell the story but too often needs to fill the space with gabbing and ads and a little light music should things break down. A bit of silence before the news could be perfect. It wouldn’t be much use for the radio, though. Silence on radio is a killer. When you hear silence on radio, it’s a guarantee that in that radio building, grace and peace are not in evidence. It’s an indication that somebody, somewhere, has tripped over something they shouldn’t have.

Or perhaps it shouldn’t always be a moment of grace and peace. Maybe it should be a minute to give the nation a boost. A guaranteed happy minute in any day, regardless of what’s going on. I find myself moved to suggest a daily funny YouTube clip, but the proportion of people annoyed by videos of sneezing cats is probably higher than those annoyed by the Angelus.

Still, a properly revamped Angelus replacement should give the nation a collective moment, a reminder of those rare moments when the country is united in joy. Sport offers us that. So, perhaps we could take a minute each evening to show footage of Ronan O’Gara’s drop kick against Wales, or Eamonn Coghlan winning the World Championships. Or they could show every kick of the 1990 World Cup penalty shoot-out. You could even add the bongs – one with every kick. It would, no doubt, keep the traditionalists happy.

shegarty@irishtimes.com