Little optimism accompanied the launch of this State’s radio service, 2RN, a century ago this month. The Irish Times ran a story under the headings “No funds for broadcasting” and the “curious position of the Free State station”.
It was not possible, noted the writer, to make definite programming arrangements as “nobody has any authority to arrange anything that will involve expenditure”.
In some respects the dilemma was obvious; radio licences would not be purchased “if programmes are not attractive”, but to provide such programmes “will cost more money than is expected from licence fees”, leaving the Minister for Finance in the “preposterous” position of having to wait and see how many licences would be bought.
Such an uninspiring start was not surprising; the minister for posts and telegraphs, JJ Walsh, who had favoured a commercial rather than State-funded service, told the Dáil in 1924 what people wanted from radio broadcasting was “amusement; they want nothing else”.
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Maurice Gorham, director of Radio Éireann in the 1950s, who published his book Forty Years of Irish Broadcasting in 1967, noted that such a “contemptuous view of the broadcasting service was to recur frequently among politicians in the years to come”.
It is worth noting and celebrating the achievement of those who worked in the new service as they managed to persevere through such cynicism, underfunding, transmitter coverage issues, qualms about reliance on advertising and political and control pressures.
The new service was a frequent target for criticism because it was at the centre of debate about cultural identity and promotion, and the attendant stridency of views about current affairs, sport, music, language and external influences, and because newspapers were concerned radio news broadcasts would impact on their sales.
Gorham noted wryly that Irish radio was “expected to do a great many things that were not demanded of other national radio services, most of them far better equipped”, including reviving Irish, fostering a taste for classical music, selling goods and services “from sausages to sweep tickets”, keeping people on the farms, providing a living for writers and musicians, education, entertainment and to “reunite the Irish people at home and those overseas”. And all that in five and half hours a day in the early years, from what Kerry writer Bryan MacMahon called “its dingy crow’s nest above the GPO”.
It rose to the various challenges, even though it did not have its own recording equipment until 1936. Michael O’Hehir brought a vivid commentary to GAA matches and, in the words of Tim Pat Coogan “made it all seem much more patriotic, large-scale, significant”. Radio employees archived the Irish music in danger of being lost; in folk art it kept, noted MacMahon, “an opening to the left ... that is to say it was in touch with something common place and indigenous”, while in the words of poet FR Higgins, it honed the art of “story-talking”, including poetry and social affairs.
The station orchestra became a respected institution and in time, RTÉ Radio became more flexible than television when it came to documenting the Troubles; it moved, in the words of one of its chroniclers John Horgan, from “nibbling at the edges of current affairs” in the 1960s to a more vibrant interrogation. This disturbed some politicians, including minister for posts and telegraphs in 1966-1969, Erskine Childers. He reacted to perceived aggressive interviewing by insisting that “a national broadcasting service should not follow the prevailing trend of stirring up protest in such a way as to emphasise all the weakness of human nature”.
But the current affairs flower blossomed. Day by Day was launched by John Bowman in 1979 and Morning Ireland commenced in 1984, now the most listened to radio programme in Ireland. There was also an overhauling of features and documentary output, while other new programmes included Women Today, initiated by Claire Duignan, the Women’s Programme and Women Talking.
These were partly a reaction to Fine Gael senator Gemma Hussey complaining in 1978 about the absence of women in broadcasting. Marian Finucane skilfully allowed women’s testimony to breathe, while Gay Byrne facilitated the opening of locked secrets.
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The commitment to radio drama, including that of Padraic Fallon as he brought new vigour to an old form, generated a challenging intimacy; as writer Anthony Cronin put it, for many people these were “the only sort of truly experimental and imaginatively far-reaching artistic productions they were likely to be brought into contact with”.
Amid all this there were setbacks, mistakes, rancour and censorship. In 1978 RTÉ journalist Desmond Fisher noted that it was difficult to agree on a “national communications policy”, but what was clear was the paramount “role of broadcasting in the life of the nation, and its independence has been confirmed”.
The achievements have far outweighed the missteps, ensuring radio’s status as the most trusted medium in Ireland.
