It's women to the fore this week - and some pretty powerful ones at that - from weaving the waves, giving birth to publishing houses in modest kitchens, to the other world of "big house" lifestyles that leave women time to dabble and fantasise. The latter feature in A World of Love by Elizabeth Bowen, read by Fiona Shaw, in The Book On One (RTE Radio 1, 2.45 p.m., Monday to Friday). The novel is set in June with echoes of distant summers that memories render hot and dry and dreamy. It's a different climate altogether in Female Tars (see Saturday's highlights below) where there's not a sign of an enticing mermaid in a programme tracking hardy women in and on the water.
She may well dream of balmy days and trips across water, but Lil Sweeney (played by Ger Ryan) has no such option. Poet Paula Meehan's first stageplay tells a gritty story of inner city realism and lives torn apart by drugs. Mrs Sweeney (RTE Radio 1, 9 p.m., Tuesday) is the first in a six-part series of Rough Magic plays.
Carmen Callil, Ursula Owen and Harriet Spicer conceived Britain's first feminist press, Virago, 21 years ago in a kitchen and went on to bring a canon of women's writing into the mainstream, rescuing the likes of Edith Wharton, Antonia White and Dora Russell from out-of-print oblivion. The Book at Bed- time (BBC Radio 4, 10.45 p.m., Monday to Friday) presents a selection of short stories which span two continents, 60 years and many aspects of women's lives.
Free-Minded Albion's Daughter by Lavinia Murray tells the story of Bessie Parkes (1829-1925) and is the first in The Sirens of Fleet Street (BBC Radio 4, 2.15 p.m., Monday), a series of afternoon plays examining the lives and writings of five pioneering women journalists over a period of 150 years. E Radio 1, 7.35 p.m., Tuesday) - the second in a seven-part series where guests can choose anything from items of personal or international significance or indeed any much-loved or much-hated person.
A MAN with impeccable morality, Nicholas Winton, is featured in Brit- ain's Schindler (BBC Radio 4, 11 a.m., Monday, FM only). In January 1939 Winton found himself in Prague, to where thousands of refugees had fled from the Nazis. Now in his 90s, he reflects on his mission to bring as many children as possible to safety in Britain.
From reality to fantasy-made-reality in I Can Do That (BBC Radio 4, 11 a.m.). A grandmother wishes to solve the Middle East crisis, while an unemployed spot welder's lifelong ambition is to remove a gallstone.