Radio Review: For a legendary ladies' man, someone with a twinkle in his eye and a reputation for magnetism and heart-fluttering charisma, it was notable that the most emotional tributes on radio this week to Charles Haughey were from men. Vincent Browne, with his own particular positive take on Haughey's time in government, sounded near tears as he recounted his most recent visits to Abbeville.
He described Haughey as being down in the face of his terminal illness (News at One, RTÉ Radio 1, Tuesday,) leaving an image of a man railing against the dying of the light; Ben Dunne (News at One, RTÉ Radio 1, Wednesday) said in a voice full of emotion and regret that the death had affected him profoundly. "I caused him some hurt and that hurts me," said the former supermarket tycoon and supporter of Haughey's lavish lifestyle. "I didn't talk to him in recent years and that hurts me even more."
The biggest coup was getting Haughey's famously media-shy friend Dermot Desmond on the line and Shane Ross, standing in for Eamon Dunphy (The Breakfast Show, NewsTalk, Wednesday), did just that. The businessman later took a call from Seán O'Rourke (News at One, RTÉ Radio 1), and in both interviews he said the sort of things any friend would say. "He was highly intelligent, good company and he loved Ireland," said Desmond, who went on to answer challenges that Haughey was corrupt: "I met him in the mid-1980s - I have never seen or heard him do anything that was corrupt. If he was such a corrupt person why did he borrow money from the banks . . . not one person benefited from their generosity to Haughey."
Another friend, PR man James Morrissey, gave an insight into how these radio programmes are put together on The Last Word with Matt Cooper (Today Fm, Tuesday). He was for letting the man go to his grave before the dancing on it began and, his voice brimming with distaste, said that he had been telephoned in the hours before the death to "line him up" for later with his thoughts on his friend's passing.
Was the radio coverage balanced - did we get equal measures saint and sinner? Some callers to Liveline (RTÉ Radio 1, Wednesday) didn't think so, feeling that the former taoiseach, his State funeral looming, was being portrayed in near-saintly fashion. But for every voice bluntly "speaking ill of the dead" (and that was the most overused expression this week) there was another one talking about free travel and the IFSC. Overall, though, it's at times like this that RTÉ comes into its own with its access to such a wealth of archive material.
Shirley Bassey's big, blousy version of I Am What I Am fitted perfectly with presenter John Toal's stereotype-ridden view of homosexuality in I Am What I Am (BBC Radio Ulster, Saturday) the first of a new three-part series focusing on the gay and lesbian community in Northern Ireland. We are, said Toal by way of introduction, "more used to hearing the rights and wrongs of being gay"; if that's the case, then the debate in Northern Ireland is stuck in the dark ages.
"All any of us straight people think about is the sex involved," said Toal, to which the only possible retort is, "speak for yourself, John." Happily, the interviewees who mostly related their coming-out stories sounded like solid rocks of sense. TV presenter Anna Nolan, Ireland's most out-there lesbian, is conscious of her position as role model - "everyone needs role models," she said. The Rainbow Project, a support group for gay men, conducted research in the North that revealed that a quarter of the young gay men surveyed had attempted suicide and that negative attitudes to their sexuality caused depression and other mental health issues.
Meanwhile, The Last Taboo, (BBC Radio 4, Monday) gave a fascinating insight into the complex relationship between Britain's largest ethnic minority groups - Asians and African-Caribbeans. Rena (27) explained her British-born Indian parents' reaction when she told them about her black boyfriend. "My dad told me who I could and couldn't marry. Basically, there was a racial hierarchy. The first choice was someone from your own community . . . and then after that, white was the next best thing . . . and after that, any other race in the world but black."
On Bridezilla (RTÉ Radio 1, Wednesday), Evelyn O'Rourke's relentlessly cheerful look at marriage Irish-style, sometime wedding pianist Kevin Hough told of a bride keen to walk down the aisle to the theme song from the movie Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves. The not-quite-up-to-date church organist, who hadn't heard of Bryan Adams's sappy Everything I Do (I Do it for You), instead launched into a rousing version of "Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Riding Through the Glen . . ."
