‘The fact Brigid contains the word “rigid” has the wrong resonance in these free-flowing times’

Radio reviews

The statue of St Brigid in Kildare beside the well named after her

The number of Kilmacud Crokes players on the pitch near the end of the All-Ireland club football final.

A protest against the housing of 100 migrants at the former ESB office block in East Wall, Dublin. Photo: Niall Carson

The statue of St Brigid in Kildare beside the well named after her

The number of Kilmacud Crokes players on the pitch near the end of the All-Ireland club football final.

A protest against the housing of 100 migrants at the former ESB office block in East Wall, Dublin. Photo: Niall Carson

The statue of St Brigid in Kildare beside the well named after her

Declan Lynch Twitter

February 05 2023 02:30 AM

The words of Dolores Whelan on Newstalk Breakfast (Newstalk, weekdays, 7am) seemed strange, almost other-worldly. She is involved with the Brigid of Faughart Festival, a celebration of St Brigid of… Faughart?

There’s a question mark, because throughout the show, a heated debate had been running on the crucial topic of whether it’s Brigid of Faughart, in Co Louth, or Brigid of Kildare.

Shane Coleman had inadvertently (or perhaps advertently) fallen into this controversy with a question for a competition which made the massive assumption Brigid belongs to Louth, but many listeners were adamant she did some of her best work in Kildare.

Finally Whelan arrived with a message of reconciliation – as if that’s what anyone wants in their breakfast broadcasting. She confirmed Brigid was born and raised in Louth, but founded an abbey in Kildare. Bringing people together was what Brigid was all about. She would have rejected this kind of divisiveness our culture loves.

He refrained from mentioning that maybe there is no correct answer, as it’s all a myth

Coleman knew this was dangerous talk, and admitted this kind of sweet reasonableness would not be good for the radio business. He refrained from mentioning that maybe there is no correct answer, as it’s all a myth.

There had even been an argument about whether the name Brigid will become more popular. Ciara Kelly felt that with the bank holiday now named after the increasingly fashionable saint, there will be more “little Biddies” around. But Coleman wasn’t so sure, and I agreed with him. The fact Brigid contains the word “rigid”, has the wrong resonance in these more free-flowing times.

This had been a kind of accidental disagreement, one of those disputes that arise just to give some exercise to the muscles of divisiveness.

Another kind arose in Newstalk’s Lunchtime Live, the largely made-up kind. There we were, listening to callers sharing with Andrea Gilligan their views on whether we should all know the words of the national anthem in Irish. Or maybe in any language.

I kind-of lost the drift of it, wondering instead how the hell anyone succeeded in placing such a complaint on the national agenda – one I have heard virtually nobody mentioning in real life, let alone ringing up a radio programme about it. Still, all that matters is that there were good points, well made, on both sides. Whatever they were.

The number of Kilmacud Crokes players on the pitch near the end of the All-Ireland club football final.

One of the oldest divides in our culture is that which separates certain aspects of the GAA from any patterns of common sense or logic – as if these phenomena belonged to the “garrison game”, and thus were to be avoided.

Marty Morrissey was on Drivetime (RTÉ1, weekdays, 4.30pm) on Monday, wrestling with his own exasperation that there had not yet been a resolution to the dispute between Kilmacud Crokes and Glen over the fact Crokes finished the game with more than 15 men on the field.

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Here the visitor to Ireland would have assumed this game had taken place the previous day, and would have been baffled this matter had not yet been settled, some 24 hours later, in the only sensible way – with a replay.

But as they listened to Marty’s tones of mortification – or Martification – it would dawn on them that the game had been played the previous Sunday.

Now they would know they were strangers in a strange land.

A protest against the housing of 100 migrants at the former ESB office block in East Wall, Dublin. Photo: Niall Carson

Which is as perfect a link as any to Morning Ireland’s (RTÉ1, weekdays, 7am) excellent coverage of anti-immigrant protests. Excellent in itself, and in the sense that the views of Ciarán O’Connor of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, coincided with my own.

Speaking of the methods of the far right, he spoke of “a clear playbook emerging around how this movement is mobilising and how these protests are organised”.

I have seen other commentators playing down this playbook, framing this more in terms of “liberals” not understanding the real fears of “ordinary people”.

Which is not unlike what they were saying about Brexit too. Sure enough they were wrong about that as well, as George Jones of the Financial Times explained to Claire Byrne. The IMF has predicted that even Russia’s economy will outperform the UK’s this year.

Sometimes an issue is divisive because some of us are right, and the others are wrong. Sometimes divisiveness is a good thing. Even St Brigid would agree with that.