Anniversaries of evasion and confusion were something of a theme in this week's radio scheduling. While several programmes told us that the US was tying itself in knots trying to say nothing while marking the 25th anniversary of defeat in Vietnam, Irish stations demonstrated similar contortions about Easter 1916.
The rare coincidence of Easter dates between that year and this one didn't spark a great deal of interest, it seems. Today with Rodney Rice (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Friday) offered a vivid walking tour of Dublin sites of the rising, and rather less vivid assessment of same, but the best bits of history on the radio were more peripherally connected to that era. They included Fiachra Gibbons from the Guardian telling Five Seven Live (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Friday) about how the IRA poetically decided not to kill John Betjeman, a British spy here during the second World War.
And then there was Sunday's bomber. It's not often this column is tipped off about a must-hear programme via a front-page "exclusive" in News of the World. That was the case on Sunday, however, with Liam Sutcliffe's story of another column, and his role in knocking a statue of Nelson off the top of it.
Yep, back in 1966 folks knew how to mark the 1916 anniversary with a bang. The fascinating interview with Sutcliffe was on Colm Keane's Voices of the 20th Century (RTE Radio 1, Sunday). Now, this column has, on occasion, gently slagged Keane for the remorseless tone of many of his ubiquitous pop documentaries: Billboard meets Hello! meets Pharmacological Digest. However, not only are his programmes almost invariably enjoyable, they are also highly accurate and trustworthy. If he is convinced he's interviewed Nelson's republican bomber, I'll believe him.
Sutcliffe was thoroughly credible in his description of Operation Humpty Dumpty, or how he planted what he called "the mine" on two occasions, the second successful, in the recesses of the pillar. The life was in the very Dublin detail: Sutcliffe said he'd missed the radio news the morning after the bomb blew, and only learned of his success when he met a woman neighbour who knew of his republican connections, and she said: "Ah, jayzus, someone's after blowing up poor old Nelson, and I hope it wasn't you."
Sutcliffe sounded an ordinary Dublin man, making a mockery of the usual media speculation at the time that special engineers had been flown in from France to do the job; typically, blowing up Nelson's Pillar was a quickly planned, competent but notably lucky amateur escapade. He also sympathised with the officer behind the Army explosion that, unlike his "mine", made a terrible mess of O'Connell Street demolishing what was left of the pillar. "Dublin people being what they are, they said they should have brought back the first man to finish the job."
And he was equally credible in the half-hearted politics he expressed. Sutcliffe even had some regrets later, when he visited Nelson's ship in Portsmouth - "where he was killed, I think it was by the Spanish" - and realised "he was a bit of a rebel himself".
Blowing the pillar was not, Sutcliffe insisted, an authorised IRA job, but the work of a breakaway group; the names of his superiors and collaborators were repeatedly bleeped out in the course of the interview. I'm not sure the Radio 1 continuity announcer was properly briefed, because after the show he conscientiously apologised for several interruptions of "tone", and he wasn't talking about Keane.
"The cause," the announcer assured us, "is being investigated." Isn't it, though - but haven't we had enough of this revisionism?
There was precious little history dredged up on The Mayoral Hot Seat (BBC Radio 5 Live, Monday), virtually the only debate afforded to voters in London's election. The tabloid newspapers may have tried to demonise Ken Livingstone's 1980s leadership of the GLC, but his opponents mainly steered clear: the GLC was most often mentioned by none other than Ken Livingstone, from how well the GLC got on with the Chamber of Commerce to the way his current Labour naysayers "were very supportive of me when I was handing out the jobs at the GLC".
The debate's tight, glitzy format - everything bar Phone-A-Friend - was ill-suited to covering a range of issues, and more aimed at organising direct confrontation between hopefuls.
Instead, the other candidates rather chummily co-operated with Ken in achieving the front-runner's imperative: making the debate so boring that no vote-shifting would arise. Fully an hour of the 90-minute programme seemed to be devoted to a technical discussion of whether a bond issue or a public-private partnership would be a more prudent way to fund London transport.
While Livingstone played safe pair of hands, lovely Tory Stephen Norris seemed to seek everyone's second preference: "Let's be quite clear, Ken . . . you're exactly right to make the point you did."
The only real cheekiness arose when Ken flatteringly asked Frank (all friendly firstnames, you understand) if he would come work for him in an anti-poverty role in a Livingstone administration. Dobson dodged so blatantly that the presenter, unusually, intervened. "Before we move on, what was your answer to his last question?" "I've given it." "You would or you wouldn't?" "I've given it."
Vincent Browne wouldn't have worn it. Tonight with Vincent Browne (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Thursday) on Wednesday featured a caller who was keen to suggest that whatever you think about history, there isn't much future left to be concerned about. Some 86 per cent of the prophecies in the Bible have been fulfilled to 100 per cent accuracy, he said, with Revelations still to come. Soon.
Vincent wasn't buying the batting average. He turned to the in-studio priest and suggested that the gospel-writers had told the story of Jesus very much with Old Testament prophecy in mind. Well, the priest said, having "mediated over" Christ's life and the Scriptures, the Bible-writers "embroidered around the facts in light of prophecy".
"Embroidered around the facts?!" Vincent thundered Brownely, but with that audible smile of his. "They made it up!"
Future historians will hear Browne and realise that, in Ireland at the turn of the millennium, the voice still counted for something. Impressionist Alastair McGowan presenting A History of the Voice (BBC Radio 4, Wednesday), looked at a period spanning from medieval chant and Elizabethan drama to the 18th-century castrati, and seemed to regard this as a golden age for the performing voice. "The voice was regarded as the supreme musical instrument." The original synthesiser, perhaps - "a luxury item, our very own personal sound system".
At one point he told us: "The voice was, for many years, the chief preserve of the church." Now, that's an irritating generalisation, typically Radio 4 in its meaninglessly pontifical way; but this was also a typically beautifully made programme, asking wonderful questions such as "What did a great singer sound like in the 16th century?"
Well, what? Pretty different from the Three Tenors, anyway: especially in the courtly and domestic setting, it seems, loudness was considered vulgar - softness, subtlety, in the normal speech range of the voice, was more highly valued. Vincent Browne, it's safe to say, lives in the right era.