So, our cultural identity has been handed to some trendy tyro and his pop-loving posse – who now shall rise from Shannon’s waters to revive our once-proud nation?
ULTAN QUIGLEY is where he most likes to be. In the doghouse. In the wilderness. Over the hill. Beneath contempt.
Last week I annoyed a number of Irish Timesreaders by suggesting that our new-found passion for rugby was evidence of an Anglicisation and a feminisation of Irish society. Leaning out of their metaphorical BMWs, they waved their moisturised fists at your humble poet. "Get back to your hovel," the Milquetoasts cried. "The poems included in collections of yours such as No Tigers for the Downtrodden(Dead Badger Books, €19.99) are poignant and witty. But Ireland is safe in our hands!" Is it? Is it really?
It has been announced that the next host of The Late Late Showis to be some tattooed "dude" named Ryan Tubridy. I have never been invited on any of this man's shows. Indeed, I doubt if I would recognise him if he bobbed to the top of my pint. But, as I understand it, he exemplifies all the trivial values of the new Celtophobic Ireland. He is young. He is from Dublin. He is an evangelist for the trendier forms of contemporary pop music. He enjoys wearing "with-it" clothes and utilising the argot of the streets.
Congratulations, RTÉ. You have found somebody to appeal to the baseball-cap-wearing demographic. Meanwhile, the bearded poets, the furrowed intellectuals, the horny-handed farmers, the shawl-clad grandmothers and the ignored Leonard Cohen fans can, for all you care, go and squat in the nearest bog every Friday night. Right on, baby!
I have, in the past, commented upon the growing lack of respect for middle-aged men in Irish society and the unjust favouritism shown towards female aspirants for positions of national importance. I am, however, fair in all things. For many years, when my (recently estranged) partner left the house, I would take the opportunity to pull the curtains, turn on the television and wait expectantly for a glimpse of the radiantly Celtic, staggeringly fecund Miriam O’Callaghan.
Other female presenters do warm the Quigley ventricles. The fire-haired Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh, whose surname means “warm, damp fetlock” in Irish, has a firm way with the stylists and astrologers that suggests she might, in braver times, have made a fearsome chieftain. When uncomplicated Mary Kennedy smiles at the owner of a donkey sanctuary I feel she is smiling directly at me.
It is, however, O'Callaghan, with her 24 rosy-cheeked children and proud defiant eyes, who best encapsulates the abused spirit of this once-proud nation. At night, huddling in the bedsit to which I have been banished, I imagine her rising from the Shannon estuary and, after achieving transcendent heights, casting lilies into each of the country's four green fields. There's a face you would enjoy seeing on The Late Late Showevery week. But, of course, she was regarded as too Irish, too honourable, too old and too fond of Leonard Cohen. Best call up Ry-Tee (as I believe the kids call Mr Tubridy) and invite him to bring his posse round to Studio Four forthwith.
I know what you are thinking. Why does Ultan Quigley, long a lyrical thorn in the establishment's side, care who gets to present The Late Late Show? Indeed, older readers will remember that in the early 1980s I was involved in a noisy controversy concerning the show. Making a rare attempt to engage with culture, the producers had persuaded Gay Byrne to interview a number of prominent writers about the state of the nation.
As I entered the green room, I recognised a famous Northern Irish scribe whose fatuous poems about digging turnips and eating turf were later to secure him some prestigious prizes. Also present were a much-banned, moistly delicious female novelist, a mean-spirited Dublin playwright who seemed to hate everybody except Byrne himself and an English author of popular novels about French assassins and neo-Nazi organisations. There was plenty of beer and some rather good whiskey.
A few weeks previously, the bibulous Oliver Reed, a frequent guest on the show, had tried to climb aboard an unwilling, but impressively dignified, Mary Kenny. It was, therefore, understandable that Byrne was a little nervous about allowing the conversation to become overly animated.
But writers are not ordinary people. It is true that, enraged by the Ulster versifier’s faux-dignity, feigned politeness and disingenuous sincerity, I did say some harsh things during the early part of the broadcast.
“So you call yourself a f**king poet, do you, you Nordy fathead?” I may have bellowed. “Well give me a rhyme for ‘banker’, then! Can you do that, Mr Poet?” Harmless banter. Was that really any reason for the security goons to propel me into the mean streets of Dublin 4? Are you surprised that I held a grudge?
Yet, as I said earlier, Ultan Quigley is nothing if not fair and, like a pal of mine who has recently returned to the Catholic Church, I begin to see The Late Late Showas a faintly sacred entity. The old shows could be viewed as a virtual reliquary, stuffed with reminders of a flawed, but decent, Ireland that has been annihilated by computers, grunge music, feminism, disco pubs, and, yes, rugby.
Maybe RTÉ will see sense and, after allowing a season or two to pass, gently escort their radical young presenter back to his “’hood”. They may then choose to call upon somebody older, wiser and less in thrall to the tides of youth culture. They have my number.
Ross O’Carroll-Kelly is resting