SAMUEL BECKETT turned down a request to write for RTÉ television in the 1960s because he was “très unfamiliar with the television and its possibilities”.
The anecdote is revealed in correspondence between the writer and Hilton Edwards, then head of drama at Radio Éireann. The letters are included in an archive of some 10,000 documents which RTÉ has donated to the archives at University College Dublin (UCD).
Yesterday, both RTÉ and UCD announced a partnership for the long-term preservation of the “unique archive of national cultural importance”. Among the documents are thousands of radio scripts including material from Beckett, Austin Clarke, Mary Lavin, Máirtín Ó Cadhain and many other distinguished Irish writers and commentators. Some of the radio drama scripts are in manuscript form.
RTÉ said the collection provided “a coherent and comprehensive account of the output of Radio Éireann between the 1940s and the early 1960s” and “constitutes a unique entry-point into hitherto unseen aspects of Irish cultural history”.
RTÉ director general Cathal Goan thanked the now retired executive archivist Brian Lynch for his “unstinting efforts in collecting and preserving this material for posterity”.
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