We are of a certain age that we can remember life without television. Yes, yes, I know what you are thinking – God! They we must be really old in that place – and now that we think about it, you are right! We are that old that we actually knew Marconi. He was a good friend and a witty guy, whenever you could get him away from that shed of his, that is, where he was constantly sticking wires and batteries together in the vain and forlorn hope that somebody might in the distance might hear him. And then one night all the wires and contraptions he had hooked up together actually worked – and radio was born.
This was the start of what could be called the home entertainment system. Radio served generations of people who heard about music, wars, great worldly events such as the coronation of kings and queens, elections of Popes and presidents, disasters, wonderful sporting events such as the Olympics, All - Ireland finals with Michael O’Hehir eloquently bringing the atmosphere of Croke Park into the rural and urbankitchens of the houses of Ireland.
In country areas there might be only one radio in the parish and, for example, on the day of an All – Ireland final or a General Election result, dozens would crowd into that particular house. Word of the outcomes would then be relayed all around the area and the bearer of the news might exaggerate the events they heard to ensure that a free drink was forthcoming from the recipients of the information.
Radio was, and still is, a wonderful medium. It is akin to giving you all the ingredients of a recipe and letting you use your imagination to bake the cake.
One of the earliest, and still the greatest, is the BBC World Service radio station which was transmitted on a frequency that could be heard in most parts of the world. Now you can hear your local station on the internet anywhere in the world but the BBC will continue as it has done for decades.
In 1961, Ireland entered a new era with the introduction of television to an awe-struck nation. That year Radio Telefis Eireann – RTE- was unveiled to the public who could now see in grainy black and white what they had been listening to for many years. The images in your mind of the voices that you heard over the decades now had faces, probably much more different than those that were in your head.
Television in Ireland (which was about the last country in Europe to get it) changed irrevocably all facets of life in Ireland. Now you could see your politicians telling you their lies, making you false promises, being grilled by Brian Farrell on great current affairs programmes like ‘7 Days’, where their body language could say more against them than a thousand words could on radio.
‘The Late Late Show’ started life then with Gay Byrne, and through his early-day brilliance and fearless tackling of issues that the many institutions, such as the Catholic Church and various Government bodies would prefer to be swept under the carpet, gave the Irish people a perceptive window into their own lives denied to them heretofore. Great moral and social debates occurred on The‘Late LateShow’and it became a mirror for the struggle of ordinary people to escape the repressive coalition of Church and State that controlled their lives to such an extent that on reflection, forty to fifty years on, was practically akin to dictatorship.
The Catholic Church, in the form of one John Charles McQuaid, Archbishop of Dublin, practically sat beside and instructed the Taoiseach of the day in formulating
social policy. Hardly a week would go by without McQuaid berating RTE publicly and privately for items that appeared on it’s schedule, particularly the Late LateShow. The arch manipulator and bully knew that television would signal the beginning of the end of the malign influence of the Catholic Church, particularly on the young people, and he was so right. The sexual repression of its people was the worst of the many abominable legacies that Mc Quaid and his cohorts in the Catholic Church left behind them.
As the influence of television grew, particularly in the Dublin and border regions of the Republic where the signals of the BBC and UTV transmitters transcended the borders and gave the residents of those areas access to multi-channel land – three stations! – the demise of the church influence increased at speed. Irish people were now able to view sex scenes in films that would have been censored on RTE and young country lads would report to their pals in ‘One Channel Land” about the hot looking dancers on Top of the Pops and the great soccer games on Match of the Day.
With the advent of colour TV and better engineering techniques, television became the great communicator and grew indomitably in the next three decades. More stations began broadcasting, though nothing in Ireland or the UK could surpass America which had a huge range of cable channels. I remember being in America in the early eighties and being stunned by the availability of 50 plus specialty channels on TV ranging from music, history, news, sport, sex, movies, shopping etc., etc. The availability of such choice made the novice viewer think that you would do nothing all day, except watch TV. And there are those who do, of course.
Now, of course in Ireland we have come full circle, as it were. With the progression to satellite broadcasting we can look at hundreds of channels covering every subject under the sun. With experience comes wisdom however, and you soon realize as you trawl through the almost endless choice that most of what you are viewing is actually crap!
Americans on an Ireland vacation could have told us those 20 years ago. Every channel seems to have some sort of perverted reality programme, from buying houses to being marooned on some island with only maggots for dinner, to the awful celebrity reality show nonsense which have utterly devalued the word ‘celebrity’.
News and current affairs programmes are being dumbed down to appeal to a mass, inarticulate audience whose sole reading material appears to be page three of The Sun newspaper. With some notable exceptions, television has become nauseatingly repetitive and dross and a turn off for a lot of people. More and more people spend their evenings surfing the net, texting or talking, rather than watch TV. Broadband speeds now allow films to be downloaded, iPods provide your music, and mobile phones give you all the news information you ever choose to need.
Television is in danger of eating itself and will find that it may no longer be the mainstream entertainment medium of choice. That this may happen is a direct consequence of the TV stations greedy and profit motivated desires being placed ahead of quality programming.
Marconi is probably smiling! His invention is still the best entertainment around.
‘I want you to eat regularly for 2 days, then skip a day, and repeat this procedure for 2 weeks. The next time I see you, you should have lost at least 5 pounds.
When the Irishman returned, he shocked the doctor by having lost nearly 60lbs!
‘Why, that’s amazing!’ the doctor said, ‘Did you follow my instructions?’
The Irishman nodded…’I'll tell you though, by jaesuz, I t’aut I were going to drop dead on dat 3rd day.’
An Irishman walks into a bar in Dublin, orders three pints of Guinness and sits in the back of the room, drinking a sip out of each one in turn.
When he finished all three, he comes back to the bar and orders three more. The bartender says to him, ‘You know, a pint goes flat after I draw it;
It would taste better if you bought one at a time.’
The Irishman replies, ‘Well, you see, I have two brothers. One is in America, the other in Australia, and I’m here in Dublin. When we all left home, we promised that we’d drink this way to remember the days we all drank together.’
The bartender admits that this is a nice custom, and leaves it there.
The Irishman becomes a regular in the bar and always drinks the same way: he orders three pints and drinks the three pints by taking drinks from each of them in turn.
One day, he comes in and orders two pints. All the other regulars’ in the bar notice and fall silent.
When he comes back to the bar for the second round, the bartender says, ‘I don’t want to intrude on your grief, but I wanted to offer my condolences on your great loss.’
The Irishman looks confused for a moment, then the light dawns in his eye and he laughs.
‘Oh, no,’ he says, ‘Everyone is fine. It’s me……I’ve give up the drink for lent!’
I don’t know how many of you are aware of the new N3 motorway being constructed in County Meath ? The motorway is going straight through a historic region close to the Hill of Tara. While I know that if you are commuting to and from Dublin every day it must be no fun sitting in traffic and that you want to spend time with your family not sitting in tailbacks but surely the government should have planned the route so much better. I believe they have let the country down very badly and we will live to regret this route. Protesters have dug underground tunnels and are prepared to live in them so as to stop any more building of the route.
Ireland’s poet laureate and Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney has branded the plan to build a freeway through the Hill of Tara as “ruthless desecration”. Professor Heaney added that, under British rule in Ireland, Tara appears to have enjoyed more protection than in today’s Irish Republic.
What are they doing about it - NOTHING. They each blame the other department saying they are responsible , I am not into politics as I believe they are all corrupt (look at all the tribunals going on, Bertie being the biggest liar of them all ) and they haven’t listened to European and World organisations appealing for the area to be saved. What can we do ?
March is the month when Irish governments send out diplomats to all corners of the world in honour of St Patrick’s Day. This year, a large number of representatives from Meath, Trim and Navan councils, surrounding the Hill of Tara, will travel abroad to promote flagging tourism, and, no doubt, to ease tensions caused by the international outcry over their continuing illegal desecration of Irish heritage at Tara (the chairman and manager of Meath council will be in Sydney and Melbourne).
This is a call to Irish people to go out of their way to greet these diplomats with the cry “Save Tara!”. Let the words “Save Tara!” resound.
Now I don’t call myself an activist but I honestly don’t know what ordinary people can do - this is at least an attempt.
The Saint Patrick Day celebrations begin today in Ireland and continue until Monday the 17th when the celebrations are closed by a fantastic Firework display. For a full list of events in Ireland then go to the official Saint Patrick’s Festival Website
Title: Erecting Carrick-a-Rede
Description:Photo of the erection of Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge
Copyright: Reproduced with kind permission of National Trust
‘If you think it’s frightening crossing the bridge itself, you should see the process involved in putting the bridge up in the first place…’
A new bridge for a new season – the famous Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, which is recognised as one of Northern Ireland’s most breath-taking attractions, was recently erected by the National Trust.
There is an eighty feet drop to the sea from the bridge itself, it’s construction once consisted of a single rope hand rail and widely spaced slats which the fishermen would traverse across with salmon caught off the island. Nowdays though it has been replaced with a rail on each side although people still get very nervous crossing it.
If you would like to see what it looks like then follow this link and take a 360 degree view, remember to look down as this way it’s safe ! Carrick a rede Rope bridge Virtual tour
NEW YORK (AP) — It’s depressing, it’s not usually sung in Ireland for St. Patrick’s Day, and its lyrics were written by an Englishman who never set foot on Irish soil.
Owner Shaun Clancy stands behind the bar at Foley’s Pub and Restaurant in New York on Wednesday.
Those are only some of the reasons why a Manhattan pub owner is banning the song “Danny Boy” for the entire month of March.
“It’s overplayed, it’s been ranked among the 25 most depressing songs of all time and it’s more appropriate for a funeral than for a St. Patrick’s Day celebration,” said Shaun Clancy, who owns Foley’s Pub and Restaurant, across the street from the Empire State Building.
I know that we are in the middle of lent and all, and folk shouldn’t be tempted but I couldn’t resist posting this little ditty I received from a friend in Canada :).
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An Irish woman of advanced age visited her physician to seek his help in reviving her husband’s libido.
‘What about trying Viagra? Asks the doctor.
‘Not a chance,’ she said. ‘He won’t even take an aspirin.’
‘Not a problem,’ replied the doctor. ‘Give him an Irish Soluble Viagra. Drop it into his coffee. He won’t even taste it. Give it a try and call me in a week to let me know how things went.’
It wasn’t a week later that she called the doctor, who directly inquired as to progress. The poor dear exclaimed, ‘Oh, faith, bejaysus and begorrah! ‘Twas horrid. Just terrible doctor!.’
‘Really? What happened?’ asked the doctor?’
‘Well, I did as you advised and slipped it in his coffee and the effect was almost immediate. He jumped his self straight up, with a twinkle in his eye, and with his pants a-bulgin’ fiercely!
With one swoop of his arm, he sent the cups and tablecloth flyin’, ripped me clothes to tatters and took me then and there, making wild, mad, passionate love to me on the table-top! It was a nightmare, I tell you, an absolute feckin’ nightmare!’
‘Why so terrible?’ asked the doctor, ‘Do you mean the sex your husband provided wasn’t good’?
‘Oh, no, no, no, doctor, the sex was fine indeed! ‘Twas the best sex I’ve had in 50 years of marriage!
But sure as I’m sittin’ here, I’ll never be able to show me face in Starbucks again.’
The emerald isle is not so green when it comes to protecting the environment , so says The Lonely Planet Guide to Ireland. The streets may be scattered with litter and I agree it is not a pretty sight but the Irish warmth and humour still make it a favourite place to visit. The guide quotes the European Environment Agency as rating Ireland’s carbon footprint per person at more than double the global average. You may have seen the increase in 4×4 Jeeps etc which are not driven by farmers who may need them but instead driven as a status symbol by many housewives.
The celtic tiger has led to on over exuberance of luxuries and but deep down we are still a welcoming nation. We still love the music and the craic and this will always be part of the Irish psyche.
So remember at first sight the country may have changed, some say for the better as there is no more emigration but deep down we are still Ireland of the Welcomes !
I would like to invite you to watch my video of Ireland while listening to the tenor voice of Michael Londra. You can check out his website here Michael Londra
The video was uploaded just over a year ago and has been viewed by around 350k viewers !
Let me know what you think of it.
