Declan Lynch: Maria Steen’s tremendous irony, Marty Morrissey does his best with Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Johnny Cash in the dancehalls | Irish Independent
Flor Lynch
Radio reviews
You could argue that the spoilt votes in the presidential election, especially those on which Maria Steen’s name had been scrawled, were an expression of rage against the political machine. You could argue that the “establishment” should just have waved her nomination through, regardless of the rules which bind everyone else.
But what is beyond argument is the fact there was an irony here – a tremendous irony – which you felt sure would finally be raised during her major post-election interview on RTÉ1’s This Week (RTÉ1, Sundays, 1pm).
The irony is this: Maria Steen throughout her public life has campaigned for the “pro-life” movement, against its “pro-choice” opponents. Now, as she spoke to This Week about the lack of “competition” which had been imposed on the people, there was an opening a mile wide for the follow-up question: ‘Would this be the first time you’ve seen the merit of a pro-choice position?’
How interesting it would have been, to explore the takeaways from this episode. The questioner could probe: ‘If you insist that the “political establishment” must change its attitude, would you also be open to reviewing your position on the desirability of giving people a wide range of options on the big issues?’
Yes that would have been interesting, but it didn’t happen. As it was with the rest of the campaign, we’re left to provide our own entertainment here.
I also wanted a bit more from The Marty Morrissey Show bank holiday interview with Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the eldest daughter of Bobby Kennedy, and brother of the notorious US health secretary, Robert Kennedy Jr – she has publicly decried his anti-vaxxer ramblings.
Marty was doing his best, asking her if she’s still in touch with the brother. “Yes. It’s always important to keep open lines of communication,” she said, at which point Marty could have asked: ‘Will you tell him so, from all his friends in Ireland, that if he keeps going with this carry-on, he might end up killing us all?’
Instead Kennedy Townsend went down both sides of the road, suggesting “some of the things he says are right, and some of the things he says we disagree with”. Now Marty really needed to crack the whip, with something like: ‘You mean the way your grandfather Joseph Kennedy was right about the stock market, but wrong about appeasing Hitler?’
But it was not to be. Again our top RTÉ presenters were failing to close the deal. You have to come here for that.
Johnny Cash at Folsom State Prison in 1968
We got some satisfaction from RTÉ1 later that day with a story about another great American who came to Ireland in 1963 – not John F Kennedy, but Johnny Cash. Bank holidays on the radio can yield some random treasures like this excerpt from the archives of Documentary on One.
Johnny Cash’s Lost Tour of Ireland (RTÉ1, Monday, 2pm) had Horslips legend Jim Lockhart visiting a shed in west Dublin where one Enda Shortall had an old USA Assorted biscuit tin which for years had contained a tape of the Man in Black playing the National Stadium in 1963.
A cracking tape it was too. In October of that year he had done 10 gigs in places such as Kingscourt, Mullingar, Mallow, Salthill and Rush – “a big slice of the 20th century landing in a small Irish town”. With Eileen Reid and The Cadets as the relief band.
At the Dreamland in Athy, they spoke of a room where the floor was covered in pound notes, with “a sea of money” taken at the door. No doubt it was all scrupulously counted with the attention to best practice for which the Irish dancehall fraternity was famed.
Who knows, Johnny Cash and his Tennessee Three might have got a fair chunk of it too. “Cash” being the operative word.
Another souvenir of old Ireland was celebrated during RTÉ1’s Sunday Miscellany (RTÉ1, Sundays, 9.10am) special on the bogs and all that they mean to us. The Bord na Móna peat briquette, “a marvel of milled peat and mechanisation”, was remembered by Marion McGarry.
From the last bale she used, she had kept one of these Irish design classics. The piece was followed by The Marino Waltz. But with that Johnny Cash anniversary in the air, and the role of the briquette in global warming, we might have gone with Ring of Fire.
Foiled again.