Radio Review Conor GoodmanIt came very suddenly, in the end. Sunday-morning listeners expecting some mild matinal stimulation from John Bowman awoke instead to Charlie Bird hauling them out of bed by the big toe with the news that an election date had been set. RTÉ's journalists, like children on Christmas morning, were too excited to sleep and had stormed into the studio at first light to began broadcasting Hard News to the nation at 8am.
Bird was even more animated than usual, hollering questions at Bertie as he left Áras an Uachataráin. "Taoiseach, are you nervous? Are you nervous? Are you looking forward to it?" I am, he might well have added. A stream of politicians from the main parties talked to Sean O'Rourke in the studio, and Aoife Kavanagh gave a lucid report on the Government's record. This well-structured, scene-setting programme may have been a long-laid plan, but to put it into action on a sunny Sunday morning at the expense of regular shows showed vigilance by the news team.
After that, everyone got a bit overexcited. For the next 48 hours, presenters on all stations seemed to speak faster and louder than usual, with the result that everyone sounded like Today FM's klaxon-voiced sports reporter MOYCHAEL MOCK MULLEN. Heavyweight Ministers and Opposition spokespersons buzzed and bumbled like bees released from a hive. Broadcasters did unusual things. Mary Wilson sat into her chair at the earlier time of 4.30pm to go head to head against The Last Word (Today FM). Today With Pat Kenny (RTÉ Radio 1) broadcast from Mayo on Wednesday morning. Even Ould Mr Brennan weighed in with a timely ad: "My manifesto? Today's Bread Today. Awahahahagh." All along the dial, the election was prodded and poked, speculated upon and dissected. By midweek, even the most inexhaustible news junkie knew more than they ever wanted to about the upcoming election. Terry Prone explained to The Last Word that people vote not for candidates or parties, but for what makes them feel good. Thus, Labour won its record number of seats in 1992 because voters "felt cool" casting such defiant ballots. On this basis, said Prone, the Greens could do well this time. Or not.
On Newstalk, Harry McGee told us which familiar faces the electorate might throw on the scrapheap. (Look out, Niall Blaney. On your guard, Joan Burton.) And we discovered on a newspaper round-up that Liz O'Donnell is seen as the "hottest" female candidate and Chris Andrews the most desirable male. (Great, now I know how to vote.) I half-expected Mystic Meg to turn up giving an astrological analysis of the Tipperary South constituency. She might yet. There are 19 more days of this.
In all, we learned much about politics as a spectator sport, but little about the effectiveness of the administration of the past 10 years, or about the country that the next government will be asked to run. Stuffing the airwaves with politicians and obsessing about the fair allocation of airtime to all parties gives little insight into the state of the nation.
For that, you needed to listen to Liveline (RTÉ Radio 1) on Tuesday. John Daly, a convicted armed robber, phoned on his mobile from inside Midlands Prison, Portlaoise. Even before Daly's call, this was one of the livelier editions of Liveline, featuring a frank exchange between crime journalist Paul Williams and Alan "Fat Puss" Bradley, a well-known figure in west Dublin. Williams called Bradley a cancer in our society. Bradley called Williams a liar.
Then came the call from Portlaoise. Daly, who makes Charlie Bird sound like a slow-playing record, started by thanking his friend Bradley for a recent postcard, accused Williams of trying to "kick off a war" by writing an article pitting the two men against each other, then rounded off by calling the Sunday World journalist a "f***ing liar". After less than three minutes, he rang off abruptly. Maybe someone took the phone away.
The exchange reminded me of something you might hear on Adrian Kennedy's late-night show on FM104. (I've always had a sneaking regard for that programme because it gives airtime to the plain people of Dublin and is a genuine alternative to the generally class-cleansed broadcast media.)
Liveline likewise lifted the lid on Dublin's underworld. Hearing Paul Williams casually called a "c***" by violent men at 2pm on RTÉ Radio 1 made the electoral spectacle almost irrelevant. That Daly was able to make his call while serving a nine-year sentence said more about our criminal justice system than all the days and nights of political talk.
Bernice Harrison is on leave