Radio Review: I mustn't have been paying attention the day it was announced that the Cheltenham race meeting was so fantastically popular, interesting and relevant to all our lives that it deserved wall-to-wall radio coverage.
It was possible to tune into BBC radio for greats stretches of time this week and not hear the word Cheltenham mentioned - and it is, after all, on its own turf - but not our public service broadcaster. As the very articulate Deirdre pointed out to Joe Duffy (Liveline, RTÉ Radio 1, Tuesday) she'd been listening to Radio 1 since Morning Ireland and every single programme covered the race meeting to a lesser, or, more often than not, a greater extent. Would we, she asked, be so thrilled if alcohol was being glorified the same way as betting was?
Programme after programme, from Five Seven Live to Gerry Ryan, gave betting tips and the relentless suggestion was that if you were not down in the bookies having a punt you were in some way missing out on this great national jamboree.
Duffy gave her a hard time. Words like killjoy and spoilsport were lobbed around but she stood her ground, and the odd thing was that Duffy, normally a broadcaster acutely in tune with what goes on beneath the surface in Irish society, seemed genuinely perplexed by her attitude. Her husband, she explained, was living under a self-imposed media blackout all day. As a recovering gambling addict, he simply couldn't risk hearing about Cheltenham, especially the glamorous, "sure it's great craic and aren't we all betting on it" way it was being covered. Gamblers Anonymous, Deirdre said, had brought in extra staff all week, such is the demand on the support group's services during Cheltenham week.
Betting was presented as a new form of patriotism, with "the Irish" betting more than ever before. Countless reports from Cheltenham featured some cute hoor being asked how much he'd wagered or won, only for him to reply "that'd be telling, sure then the wife'll find out", or others laughing about how they'd phoned in sick and that the extra day that's been added on to the race meeting only meant pulling an extra sickie from work.
On Thursday, Des Cahill, whose unbridled enthusiasm for the whole thing became more and more irritating as the week went on (Today with Pat Kenny, RTÉ Radio 1, Mon-Fri) reported that the bookies had taken a beating on a race the day before - as if that is ever truly the case.
In terms of programming, a case could be made - just - for Ronan Collins presenting his show from Cheltenham for the week. Tune in and you'd know what you were getting, and at least he actually featured the races like proper sports coverage, but having extensive feature coverage that was mostly focused on betting popping up on every programme was simply too much.
The most depressing feature item - and there were quite a lot to choose from - came from Dundalk, (Five, Seven Live, RTÉ Radio 1, Tuesday) which we were told proudly by more than one punter is "the betting capital of Ireland". The reporter ricocheted between the pub and the bookies - all it was short of was duelling banjos.
Another hot subject on radio right up to Thursday was how alcohol-sodden St Patrick's Day has become and how downright horrible, dirty and dangerous Dublin is on the day of the parade. Orla Barry's excellent show on Newstalk 106 and Liveline gave the problems associated with the drowning of the shamrock a good outing most days this week. It all didn't make for a pretty picture.
Gerry Godley's Music Spoken Here (RTÉ Radio 1, Mon-Fri) did, however, go some way towards presenting another Ireland, one where musical creativity is burgeoning and the short series was the real stuff of public service broadcasting.
Over the past six months Godley, together with producer Mark McGrath, has been working on a five-part series about music in Ireland, bringing a fascinating and diverse range of musicians into studio to record new and in some cases specially commissioned pieces. For someone who knows very little about the contemporary music scene, it was a revelation to hear the range of genres and indeed musicians at work. There were performances from well-known voices such as John Spillane and Declan O'Rourke but also jazz from The Phil Ware Trio, Cormac Kenevey, and Dylan Rhyhart made his studio début with his 10-piece outfit, Fuzzy Logic.
The change in Ireland from a mono to a more multicultural society has, said Godley, been a key issue for traditional musicians and there were several experimental pieces from accordionist Peter Browne's band, Tavil, as well as jazz saxophonist Michael Buckley's sean-nós project while percussionist Conor Guilfoyle's new project, which brings together 10 Cuban, Argentinian, Italian and Irish musicians, was a festival in itself.
