Back to our default blame setting

RADIO REVIEW:WITH THE FILLIP of May's state visits rapidly receding, the national conversation settled back into its default gloomy setting last week. Hardy perennials such as bailout interest rates and gun attacks re-emerged on news cycles. Liveline(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) has returned to its customary culture of complaint, with such familiar bugbears as featherbedding politicians, overzealous officialdom and petty crime featuring on the agenda.

An unlikely tonic came in the form of

The Lyric Feature: Sunlight And Shadow

(Lyric FM, Friday), if only because this portrait of the late composer Frederick May was a reminder that things could be worse. Amid the pious austerity of de Valera’s Ireland, May was a marginal figure, with acquaintances testifying to his dishevelled lifestyle.

“One, he was composer; two, he was gay; three, he was an alcoholic; and four, he was deaf,” recalled Garech Browne, the founder of Claddagh Records. “None of which got you very far in the Ireland of the day.” This was, in fact, a rose-tinted sketch: Browne left out the mental illness which crippled May for several years. But despite all this, May fought the temptation to feel sorry for himself. Having studied under Vaughan Williams in London in the 1930s, the Dublin-born composer returned to his hometown, where he composed his defining work, String Quartet in C Minor, against a backdrop of increasing deafness caused by otosclerosis.

“This cheerful prospect affected considerably the content of these quartets,” said May, in one of the documentary’s archive clips. “You want to avoid self-pity but much stress and strain found its way into the music.”

Even when he finished the piece in 1946, it remained unheard for many years, as there was no string quartet in Ireland at the time to perform it. By the 1960s, he had seemingly disappeared: in fact, he was in Grangegorman mental hospital, having suffered a calamitous nervous breakdown. He was eventually tracked down in the early 1970s by Browne, who wished to record the String Quartet for his label and bring his music to a new audience. Colm Tóibín, who met May while a student in the mid-1970s, remembered him as a “sour” presence. But when given an LP of the quartets by the composer, Tóibín was gripped by the music: “I think it stands out as important piece of Irish beauty.”

Produced by Celia Donoghue, Sunlight And Shadowwas a quietly compelling slice of cultural archeology. Not only did the documentary highlight an overlooked aspect of Ireland's musical past, it reminded listeners of the materially and artistically impoverished nation of old. Yet while May spent his last years in a Dublin hospital, he expressed no regrets. "I'm glad I'm alive to see that everything hasn't been a dead loss," he said in one of his last interviews before his death in 1985. As we struggle with contemporary adversities, May's stoicism could teach us a lesson.

For those seeking to follow in the footsteps of Paul Theroux, the American travel writer outlined 10 tips from his book, The Tao of Travel, on The John Murray Show(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), but they could be boiled down to one essential point: "You want to be disconnected when travelling." In order to have an authentic experience of a foreign land, one had to leave behind one's family and all that was familiar. Theroux seemed suspicious of modern conveniences, such as mobile phones, GPS systems and even cameras: "Taking a picture makes me forget things." Writing things down, by contrast, helped him observe things.

It was a short and circumscribed item – Murray did not ask any juicy questions about his guest’s famed falling out with his literary mentor, VS Naipaul, even when his name came up – but it was nonetheless revealing. Theroux played down the significance to his endeavours – “I don’t think there’s any great virtue in travel” – but his inquisitiveness and rigour shone through his gracious and understated persona.

Keeping a low profile has never been part of David McWilliams's modus operandi. But his latest venture, appearing in an ad for a well-known brand of cider, was so attention-grabbing that Ryan Tubridy issued an on-air plea for the celebrity economist to call his show ( Tubridy, 2FM, weekdays) and explain himself. McWilliams duly did so, saying he was attracted to the ad campaign's theme of "doing our bit".

“The idea is that in the recession either you can sit back and you take it,” he said. “Or you can get up and do it for yourself.” For one exciting second, it seemed that McWilliams was about to advocate a return to the practice of quaffing a two-litre in the park, practically a national pastime during the downturn of the 1980s.

Alas, it was not to be. “The idea is [that] by almost changing your own perception of what’s going on, you can get up and actually change the economy,” McWilliams said. “Because if we wait, Ryan, nothing’s going to happen.” Considering he was basically flogging a few flagons, this was guff of a breathtaking nature. McWilliams’s devotion to positive action is not hollow – he also plugged the admirable Dalkey Book Festival, of which he is a co-director – but in pitching a cider ad as a national manifesto, his shtick tipped into parody. Feeling sorry for ourselves will not solve our problems, but deluded self-satisfaction is no answer either.

Radio moment of the week

An iconoclast heedless of shibboleths and sacred cows, Eamon Dunphy has never been shy to argue his point. Until, it seems, he encounters one of his heroes. When Robert Fisk appeared on The Dunphy Show(Newstalk, Sundays) he was introduced in such gushing terms by his host that the journalist intervened: "Stop calling me legendary." Later, when Fisk asserted that sanctions never work, Dunphy demurred, saying they had ended apartheid in South Africa. When Fisk disagreed, Dunphy was uncharacteristically meek: "I'm not going to argue with you, Robert."

radioreview@irishtimes.com