IT was the language of Drumcree, more than the pictures, which was initially depressing. One Orangeman, priggish in what he doubtlessly considered the formal decorum of his words, told the RUC that the queen's people" demanded "to walk the queen's highway". He was serious too. In England, Scotland or Wales, you wouldn't hear such anachronistic codology outside of tourist trap pageantry or arcane legal English.
People there would be embarrassed to talk like characters from a children's TV version of Dick Turpin. But not at Drumcree, where David Trimble was calling on Orangemen "to muster". Not to gather, or mass, or congregate, or convene, or assemble, mind. No, they should "muster" like troops assembling for inspection. So, the queen's people mustered boy, did they muster to walk triumphantly along Garvaghy Road.
Presumably, Mr Trimble thought of himself as a rightful inspector a sort of General Muster of the queen's people. Taunted by Ian Paisley and Robert McCartney for being too soft over the role for George Mitchell in the multi party talks, Trimble replayed the Drumcree card which won him the leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party last year. This would be General Muster's second stand and to hell with the consequences.
Last year, hand in hand with Paisley, he gloated after the Orange march was allowed through. Had television cameras not been there to show us all General Muster's triumphalism, he might have got away with it. Remember, too, that a Channel 4 crew was beaten up at Drumcree last year. This year, with tensions even higher, you could hear the understandable nervousness in reporters' voices.
But the North's marching season coincides with what the media call the "silly season". Consequently, television coverage of Drumcree and of the violence across the North has been restricted RTE with just one current affairs programme Thursday's Prime Time could not respond adequately to the developing crisis. In fairness, its news coverage improved as the week progressed, but, generally, RTE's schedules, like the near silence of the Government, suggested a sense of comfy removal from the North.
This incongruity seemed particularly stark on Davis (RTE 1, Wednesday) where a studio full of talking heads discussed property in Dublin. As they did, property in Belfast was going up in flames. But, given its current affairs structure, RTE remains unable to react adequately to breaking news. The Davis topic was valid and of interest to a great many people. But, considering the night that was in it, it sounded unavoidably smug and rather crass.
Over on Sky News, there were regular broadcasts about Drumcree, but few updates. Pictures from the afternoon, or, at best, the early evening, were being transmitted at midnight. Certainly, this was the case on Tuesday and Wednesday. So, an illusion of contemporaneity, bolstered by the channel's absurdly dramatic signature music, was maintained. But there was a great deal of PR in all of this, with scheduling promising updates which either were not, or could not be, delivered.
The arrival of a yellow earth mover on the Orange side made the archaic guff about the queen's people" and "the queen's highway" sound even mere absurd. You don't expect to see one of these in a Dick Turpin landscape. But early 18th century language and late 20th century technology remain a feature of the North. It's all "folk tradition", of course, like say, slavery might be considered folk tradition in the southern states of the US.
And indeed, television in recent years has covered the Orange marches with this amiable "folk tradition" tone. But part of this tradition (a mere 188 years no big deal across the span of Anglo Irish history in the case of the Garvaghy Road march) is supremacism. It is easy to understand why the media is usually reluctant to stress this aspect of the Orange marches sleeping dogs and all that. But prudence is not meant to include the shirking of responsibility.
Anyway by Thursday's lunchtime news bulletins, we saw the Orangemen parade through, protected by the RUC, who turned their violence on Catholics. Maybe lives were saved by this resorting to form of the power structures in the North. But watching the scenes on the Garvaghy Road and the capitulation to Orange mob rule, which they represented, it was hard not to think that the IRA will be among the big winners from this disgrace.
So, it all goes back to General Muster, who has managed, yet again, to have his fellow Orangemen allowed along a sectarian route. Presumably, he's proud of himself. Will he now argue that republicans should be allowed march up the Shankill Road? Meanwhile, we hear that within RTE there is a mustering of support among some journalists prompted by the cadre of anti peace process backs throughout the media for the reinstatement of Section 31. Perhaps they're proud of themselves too.
IN infinitesimally lighter vein, Jonathan Philbin Bowman presented a new quiz show on RTE this week. Dodge the Question, given the week that was in it sounded like an ironically apt title. Still, that was not the fault of this passable little programme.
The boy Bowman, in Larry King braces and black tie, appears to have learned how to edit himself and is much the better for it.
The questions, based on a grid of apparently arbitrary topics (Oscar, Twins, Venice, Doe, Swedes, Election, Hare, Speedy, Cod, Variety. Behaviour, Customary, Sleuth, Withdraw, Hormonal and Perverse were the initial selection) are certainly above Quicksilver if below Mastermind standard. In fact, they seem to be pitched about right perhaps erring, just slightly, on the side of difficulty.
The programme's sci-fi theme music is more than a little portentous and the dark set has echoes of the Alien movies. The green and purple set colours are more subdued than those of the usual game show and for that we should, I suppose, be grateful. But four evenings a week is too much. It's cheap programming, of course, and it fills two hours of the summer schedules. In a normal week, it might be possible to be humorous about it, but really, the unionist gangsterism of this week, makes Dodge the Question seem, albeit unfairly, ridiculously trivial.
TWO other new series on RTE The People's Landscape and Changing Faces of Ireland were notable for the quality of their photography. A dramatic shot of a stag staring through Hollywood like rain in Killarney National Park made a stunning background to the title credits of The People's Landscape. Zoom shots of a kestrel and a lily had acted as a kind of warm up for the splendid stag shot.
But there's more to this kind of documentary than pointing the camera editing creates the kind of juxtapositions which give rhythm and this opening episode of the new five part series succeeded well in this too. Perhaps its main fault is Patricia Phillips's voice over. It is just too sweet for the ruggedness it describes a bit like having Kathleen Watkins commentate on boxing. A more growling narration would be more suitable, Kerry not exactly being a giant version of the neatly ordered Botanic Gardens.
Still, that's a mild criticism, because this sort of television is primarily visual. Blue eyed grass, found nowhere else in Europe the so called strawberry tree St Patrick's cabbage and ancient oaks were strikingly caressed by the lens. So too were caterpillars, birds and wild garlic. But the deer were the stars native red deer and imported sika deer.
Mind you, the culling and gutting of one sika deer violently interrupted the hitherto fairy tale woodland conviviality. Shot and sliced open, the deer's innards were dumped for forest scavengers to feast. No doubt, such culling is necessary part of managing Killarney National Park. But it did jolt the mood of a visually 5p documentary which closed much as it had opened, with a stag silhouetted against the night sky.
Changing Faces of Ireland travelled to Connemara and Donegal where, as with Kerry, just pointing the camera is almost guaranteed to deliver spectacular visuals. And so it proved. This six part series focuses on schemes backed by FAS, to combat unemployment and emigration. It's presented by Alf McCarthy, who with a breezy, occasionally cloyingly optimistic manner's like a Bill O'Herlihy for Ireland's cottage industries.
Alf's first visit was to Dun Luiche at the foot of Mount Errigal in Co Donegal. There he reported on a revival in weaving, which is attracting tourists to the area. Then he headed for Lettermore in Connemara, where local people are compiling a database to help emigrants stay in touch with their roots. The scheme involves the ostensibly bizarre mix of word processing and graveyard restoration. But, as much as I could understand it, it seemed worthwhile.
FINALLY, When Happiness Is A Place For Your Child was a heartbreaking documentary about handicapped children and their parents. Inspired by the Limerick Parents and Friends of the Mentally Handicapped, it recounted the great difficulties and fears of such children and their parents lack of residential care fear of the future often growing problems as handicapped children grow.
It's not that this was an utterly bleak documentary. Indeed, there was magnificent human warmth here too. But, its great strength was the honesty of the participants. "It's like being a prison warden," said one father of trying to control his handicapped teenage son. I rejected her and hoped for a cot death," said the mother of a disabled daughter. "Now I can cope, but I sometimes feel guilty about those early feelings."
It was the practical things too visitors feeling awkward when visiting the mother of a handicapped newborn the unrelenting, round the clock, 365 days a year commitment the politicians' broken promises which painted a full picture of the problems. One woman spoke of "seeing the disability and not seeing the child". It was the sort of phrase which can seem oily and glib unless it's earned. These parents had more than earned the right. They should post a video of this programme to every TD in the country. That is, if they can find them for their silence after the Garvaghy Road outrage has got to make you wonder.