RTÉ RADIO 1 HIGHLIGHTS
WEEK 18
Saturday 9 – Friday 15 May 2009
Highlights:
The RTÉ Radio 1 Music Collection – In Concert – Eurovision Extravaganza – Part 2
Eurovision Song Contest 2009 – Semi Final
Seascapes
New Series:
Private Passions
The RTÉ Radio 1 Short Story Competition 2009 In Memory Of Francis MacManus
*New Series*
PRIVATE PASSIONS – THE DUBLIN DEVILS
Private Passions is a new six-part series which has been funded by the BCI Sound & Vision scheme.
Each half hour documentary in the series has been produced by a different independent producer.
In the first programme in the series, The Dublin Devils, Fiona Kelly takes to the side-line to follow Ireland’s first ever gay soccer team, both on and off the pitch, where she meets a group of lads who are keen to defy the stereotype that gay men are no good at sport.
Having started out playing under the name “Men United” in 2005, the team quickly opted for a name-change and “The Dublin Devils” was born.
Although, for many of the players, the emphasis is as much on the the social aspect as it is on football, the team has grown in skill and confidence and plays in a weekly competitive league. Perhaps the only giveaway that the team is gay is the fact that their jerseys are a deep shade of pink!
Through the course of the documentary, the players talk openly about their own experiences of playing sport when they were growing up and also reflect on the experience of being a gay man in Ireland in 2009.
We also get to meet a couple who met through the soccer team and have since become engaged. As Francis Larrigan, PRO of “The Dublin Devils” observes: “We are probably unique amongst football teams in that romance flourishes on our team!”
Producer: Fiona Kelly
(Funded by BCI Sound and Vision)
RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday 9 May, 7.30am
SATURDAY SPORT with John Kenny and Andrew O’Connor
Soccer: English Premier Divison
Rugby: Magner’s League
Golf: Italian Open Day 3
Motorsport: Spanish Formula 1 Grand Prix Qualification
Producer: Gabriel Egan
RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday 9 May, 2.01pm
OFF THE SHELF
This week Emer O’Kelly and Fintan O’Toole discuss Plays and Controversies: Abbey Theatre Diaries 2000-2005 by Ben Barnes.
In diaries covering the period of his artistic directorship of the Abbey, Ben Barnes offers a frank, honest, and probing account of a much commented upon and controversial period in the history of the national theatre. These diaries also provide fascinating personal insights into the day to day pressures, joys, and frustrations of running one of Ireland’s most iconic institutions. For over a century now the Abbey has conducted its love/hate relationship with the Irish public and the wider international audience, and in Plays and Controversies Ben Barnes illuminates his own eventful chapter in that absorbing story, the impact of a fascinating still-remembered chapter in the story of the Abbey Theatre, related at first hand with a fire and a vigorous sense of commitment comparable to that of the founding fathers. Christopher FitzSimon. Barnes addresses a moment in Irish cultural history which stands as a many-sided cautionary tale. It is the tale of an embattled man, a courageous man, who dares to borrow Yeats’s title because he found himself for a time in similar circumstances running the national theatre though in altogether different conditions. Chris Murray. This book is an important historical record of a recent tumultuous period in relation to the Abbey Theatre and anticipate that it will make a worthwhile contribution to lively cultural debate on theatre, history and politics.
Presenter: Andy O’Mahony
Producer: Bernadette Comerford
RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday 9 May, 7.02pm
SOUTH WIND BLOWS
Philip King presents music, song and chat from the west Kerry Gaeltacht.
Producer: Peter Browne
RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday 9 May, 8.02pm
CEILI HOUSE
Tonight’s programme comes from The Pier House in Skerries, Co. Dublin where preparations are under way for the Skerries Traditional Music Week-end which runs from 15 – 17 May.
Presenter: Kieran Hanrahan
Producer: Peter Browne
RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday 9 May, 9.02pm
SUNDAY MISCELLANY
This week audio essays from Canada and Ireland in a Famine Commemoration programme in association with Skibbereen, host town for the first provincial National Famine Memorial Day events for 2009. The programme will link the legacy of the Irish Famine with Canada where today commemorations are also being held.
Producer: Cliodhna Ni Anluain
RTÉ Radio 1, Sunday 10 May, 9.10pm
SUNDAY SPORT with Con Murphy and Jacqui Hurley
Soccer: English Premier Divison
Racing: Leopardstown
G.A.A.: Preview of tonight’s Connacht Football Championship: Mayo v New York
Golf: Italian Open Day 4
Motorsport: Spanish Formula 1 Grand Prix
Producer: Barry O’Neill
RTÉ Radio 1, Sunday 10 May, 2.00pm
DOCUMENTARY ON ONE
SECRETS AND LIES
Elizabeth O’Halloran’s life changed in a workingman’s pub in Huddersfield. She was 36 and in the northern English town for a relatives funeral. After the burial the family went to the club where a drunk relative told Elizabeth she looked like her mother – Marie. Nobody was supposed to know what her mother looked like. Nobody had ever mentioned Marie before. This small chat was the starting point and began a chain of events which saw Elizabeth’s life unravel.
Elizabeth was brought up by Michael and Joyce Garrigan in the East End of London where she was told from a young age that her father had an affair with a black woman. The black woman became pregnant but did not want the baby and gave the baby to the Garrigans. Elizabeth was told her birth mother died soon after her birth.
After the revelation Elizabeth began to investigate her birth mother so she went to Labroke Grove in West London, where she was born.
Upon talking to the locals another story emerged, that in fact Elizabeth’s mother was actually Irish. Mary or Marie O’Halloran was her name and her father was a Jamaican fellow named Melvin McCook.
The more Elizabeth learned, the deeper the mystery grew. There were questions. How did she become a Garrigan? Where did her birth mother disappear to? Locals told stories of a baby being snatched. Some told stories of a crying Irishwoman who claimed her baby had been robbed. The baby they said was Elizabeth. Joyce Garrigan says these claims are wicket rumours. How could she rob a baby? She claims she adopted Elizabeth using residential order from social services but there’s no paper to back up Joyce’s claims.
Nobody is certain how Elizabeth came to be a Garrigan. Nobody knows what happened to the Irish mother at the centre of this story. All that is certain are the secrets and lies.
Producer: Ciaran Cassidy
RTÉ Radio 1, Sunday 10 May, 7.02pm
(First broadcast on 12 October)
(Repeated on Monday 11 May)
*New Series*
THE RTÉ RADIO 1 SHORT STORY COMPETITION 2009 IN MEMORY OF FRANCIS MACMANUS
This evening the prize-winning story from this year’s competition.
Producer: Seamus Hosey
RTÉ Radio 1, Sunday 10 May, 7.45pm
(Repeated on Monday 11 May)
(See Release below)
SUNDAY PLAYHOUSE
CRANE written and directed by Joe O’Byrne
The Crane by Joe O’Byrne is a look at the life of two men out on a limb, in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland. Starring Stephen Brennan, Catherine Byrne, Alan Howley, Clelia Murphy and Angela Harding
Produced by Kevin Reynolds
RTÉ Radio 1, Sunday 10 May, 8.02pm
*Highlight*
IN CONCERT – EUROVISION EXTRAVAGANZA – PART TWO
RTÉ RADIO 1 MUSIC COLLECTION
In advance of the 54th Eurovision on Saturday 16 May, a nostalgic celebration of the heady days of Ireland’s past successes and in anticipation of future glory! The RTÉ Concert Orchestra, vocalists Paul Harrington, Charlie McGettigan, Niamh Kavanagh, Jacinta Whyte and backing vocalists. Andy O’Callaghan, conductor.
Presented by Maxi with guest appearance by Dustin the Turkey.
Recorded at the National Concert Hall, Dublin 15 April 2009.
Sound Engineers: Mark Dwyer, Eddie O’Halloran
Producer for RTÉ Radio 1: Peter Browne
RTÉ Radio 1, Monday 11 May, 9.02pm
BOOK ON ONE
ATOMISED by Michel Houellebecq – Part 2
Michel Houellebecq’s dark and disturbing novel Atomised sees him establish himself as a unique and important voice in European letters. With his first work, Whatever, Houellebecq had created a sassy, street-wise bulletin of disaffected existentialism, and here that voice brilliantly extends its range. Atomised (from the French Les Particules élémentaires) is the story of two half-brothers, Michel and Bruno, who seem to represent two sides of Houellebecq himself (there are more than a few moments in the book where we feel we are reading a strange roman à clef). Michel, a molecular biologist, finds ordinary, human emotions inexplicable, making him seem abstruse and cold. Bruno is his opposite: a frustrated libertine trapped in a body most find repellant. Through these skewed archetypes an intricate, sometimes quite moving story of the brothers’ lives is formed.
Read by Conor Lovett
Produced by Aidan Stanley
RTÉ Radio 1, Monday 11 – Friday 15 May, 11.13pm
THE ROLLING WAVE
RTÉ RADIO 1 MUSIC COLLECTION
Part two of a concert with fiddle player Kevin Burke and singer/guitarist Cal Scott recorded in Dolan’s, Limerick last June as part of the Blas Festival which takes place in the University of Limerick.
Presented and produced by Peter Browne
RTÉ Radio 1, Wednesday 13 May, 9.02pm
*Highlight*
EUROVISION SONG CONTEST 2009 – SEMI FINAL
The second semi-final of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest live from Moscow which will feature Ireland’s entry, Sinéad Mulvey and Black Daisy singing Et Cetera
Presenter: Maxi
RTÉ Radio 1, Thursday 14 May, 9.02pm
SCRÍBHNEÓIRÍ FAOI CHAIBIDIL
Alan Titley i gcuideachta lucht léinn agus léitheoireachta agus iad ag cur is ag Cúiteamh faoi litríocht na Gaeilge.
Alan Titley is joined by lovers of literature and learning to discuss writers and writing in Irish.
Presenter: Alan Titley
Léiritheoir: Cathal Póirtéir
RTÉ Radio 1, Friday 15 May, 8.02pm
DEBATING DARWIN
Darwin’s work may have initially focused on biology but through time it has become relevant in fields such as philosophy, psychology and economics. Presenter Damien Walshe goes on a journey over six programmes and looks at how Darwinian work has been used by many to explain morality, embarrassment and even religion.
Presenter: Damien Walshe
Producer: Peter Mooney
RTÉ Radio 1, Friday 15 May, 8.30pm
REBEL MUSIC: REGGAE STORY – ROOTS NATTY ROOTS (The golden days of 1970s reggae)
THE RTÉ RADIO 1 MUSIC COLLECTION
With the work of the great producers, Lee Scratch Perry, Bunny Lee and King Tubby. Rastafarianism, long practised by a minority in Jamaica became a siren song for hopelessness and was increasingly adopted by musicians. The influence in Reggae music made the religion hugely popular amongst the poor.
Presenter : Lillian Smith
Series Producer: Marcus Connaughton
RTÉ Radio 1, Friday 15 May, 9.02pm
(First broadcast 9 October 2008)
*Highlight*
SEASCAPES
A wooden boat building school has been established at Roxboro in Limerick which is restoring the maritime tradition of the Treaty City. As well as providing classes for adults, it is teaching school pupils how to learn about using wood, not alone to be able to build and restore wooden boats, but to use the skills they are taught in general life, such as at home or to find a career. The A.K. ILEN company takes its name from the boat of the same name which another famous Limerick man, the great Conor O’Brien sailed when he became Ireland’s first circumnavigator. The aim of the voluntary effort, run with the support of the Limerick Enterprise Development Partnership, a community support organisation, is “to provide men and women and school-goers with the inspiration for self-reliance and fulfilment that comes through skilful work in the pursuit of excellence.”
The story of the centre is told on Seascapes this week, by Toby Graystone, the shipwright who is supervising the work and by Liam McElligott, a former Chairman of Shannon Development who is one of the directors of the A.K.ILEN wooden boat building school at Roxboro.
Presented by RTE’s Marine Correspondent Tom MacSweeney
Producer: Marcus Connaughton
RTÉ Radio 1, Friday 15 May, 10.30pm
Further Information:
Jack Fox, (01) 208 2452, jack.fox@rte.ie
Sandra Byrne, (01) 208 2506/ 087 249 3048, sandra.byrne@rte.ie
Sarah Martin, (01) 208 2312/ 087 750 1850, sarah.martin@rte.ie
RTÉ
RTÉ RADIO 1 SHORT STORY COMPETITION IN MEMORY OF FRANCIS MACMANUS
The RTÉ Radio 1 Short Story Competition in Memory of Francis MacManus was founded in 1985 to promote and encourage creative writing for radio. Over the years the short story competition has resulted in the broadcast of more than 500 stories by new and emerging writers and has set many authors on the path to publication and recognition. This is the 24th year of the competition and over 700 stories were received from all over Ireland and many from Irish people living abroad. The final selection of 22 stories has been made.
The prizes for the RTÉ Radio 1 Short Story Competition in Memory of Francis MacManus are €3,000, €2,000 and €1,000 for 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes. All 22 shortlisted stories in the competition will be broadcast in the coming months. The three winners of this year’s competition will be announced on Wednesday 29 April 2009.
The judges for the 2009 competition are:
1) Julie Parsons – Novelist and former radio and television producer with RTÉ.
2) Maurice Harmon – Former Professor of English at University College Dublin, poet, academic and scholar.
3) Claire Kilroy – Novelist who won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2004.
4) Seamus Hosey – Senior Producer in Arts and Features Department in RTÉ Radio 1 and Chairman of the adjudication panel.
Speaking of the 700 stories entered for the RTÉ Radio 1 Short Story Competition, Seamus Hosey said,
“The range and scope of this year’s stories reflect the extraordinary variety of life lived in Ireland today, a country undergoing profound changes where the old certainties are being challenged and the new order yet to be established. These stories reflect with great insight, emotion and skill the complexities of everyday life transformed by the power of the writer’s imagination and passion.”
[List of short-listed entries below]
—Ends—
For further information please contact:
Sandra Byrne, RTÉ Radio Press & Publicity Office, 01- 208 2506/087- 249 3048, Sandra.byrne@rte.ie
Note to Editor:
WRITERS SHORTLISTED FOR RTÉ RADIO 1 SHORT STORY COMPETITION IN MEMORY OF FRANCIS MAC MANUS
Shortlist in alphabetical order
(1) “The Other Side of Nowhere” by Elizabeth Carty, Dunsaney, Co. Meath.
(2) “The Body” by John Austin Connolly, Booterstown, Co. Dublin.
(3) “African Finch” by Richard Cotter, Carrigline, Co. Cork.
(4) “Out of Sight” by Geraldine Creed, Shankill, Dublin 18.
(5) “Purgatory” by Paul Duffy, Baldoyle, Co. Dublin.
(6) “Molly’s Last Performance” by Des Feeney, Dungarvan, Co. Waterford.
(7) “Hay” by Ciaran Folan, An Spideal, Co. Na Gaillimhe.
(8) “Race” by Andrew Fox, Skerries, Co. Dublin.
(9) “Wish You Were by Anthony Glavin, Whitehall, Dublin 9.
(10) “Romance” by Alastair Hadden, Ballinteer, Dublin 16.
(11) “Commas and Comas” by Rachel Hegarty, Raheny, Dublin 5.
(12) “One In A million” by Kay Inckle, Basin Street, Dublin 8.
(13) “Hired Help” by Fidelma Kelly, Blackrock, Co. Dublin.
(14) “Ten” by David Keohane, Shannon, Co. Clare.
(15) “Thursday Market” by Martin Malone, Kildare Town.
(16) “Tipping Point” by Anna May Mangan, Wembley, Middlesex.
(17) “An Irishman in Berlin” by David Andrew Mc Ilroy, Brussels.
(18) “Centre of Small Hell” by Geraldine Mills, Rosscahill, Co. Galway.
(19) “Mare Rubrum” by Helena Mulkerns, Wellingtonbridge, Co. Wexford.
(20) “Emperors of Speed” by Mary O’Donnell, Maynooth, Co. Kildare.
(21) “Only Four Girls” by Ita Ryan, Cahersiveen, Co. Kerry.
(22) “Home Help” by Dolores Walshe, Virginia, Co. Cavan.