Sporting chance to change the subject

RADIO REVIEW:AN EVENT resplendent in pageantry and colour, the visitors' arrival caused palpable enthusiasm among some broadcasters.

"What a night – what a week, actually," said Eoin McDevitt, opening his show on Wednesday. "I'm very excited." Yes, the presence of 12,000 Portuguese football fans in Dublin for the Europa Cup final had the host of Off the Ball(Newstalk, weekdays) in a state of great animation, as did the prospect of the Heineken Cup final.

In a week when coverage of another guest of the nation saturated the radio, the freewheeling sports programme was a rare oasis for listeners seeking respite from talk about the royal visit. Or so it seemed. “Screw it,” McDevitt said. “I’m even excited about the queen being here, even though I had my bag searched three times on my way into work.”

It was nearly impossible to escape the fact of Queen Elizabeth’s presence this week. In fairness, Off the Ball’s presenting team did their best, showcasing the usual blend of knowledge and irreverence that makes their show accessible to even the most casual sports fan. The closest thing to royal watching was the scrutinising of Brian O’Driscoll’s gait at Wednesday’s royal banquet, in an attempt to glean the Irish star’s fitness in advance of today’s rugby final.

The show’s jocular defiance was ultimately in vain, however, with McDevitt expressing disappointment that the vibrant atmosphere generated by the Portuguese supporters was overshadowed by goings-on elsewhere.

So all-pervasive was the sense of historic and symbolic import caused by the queen's trip that even the passing of Garret FitzGerald was subsumed in the occasion. Speaking on Thursday's Morning Ireland(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), the former minister Gemma Hussey said it was a "wonderful week" for FitzGerald to "slip away", given his efforts at Anglo-Irish reconciliation. Ryan Tubridy was equally struck by the "symmetry" between the queen's arrival and the former taoiseach's death. "There was something poetic about his passing this week," said the presenter as he opened his show ( Tubridy, 2FM, weekdays) with an item on FitzGerald's life and legacy.

It was a gracious if understandable gesture on Tubridy’s part: having shown the British monarch around the Guinness Storehouse the day before, he might have been expected to start off by talking about his encounter.

After a while, of course, the topic arose. “Will I tell you about yesterday?” he asked, like an eager teenager with thrilling news that could be bottled up no longer. Tubridy spoke fondly about the event, taking delight in describing Prince Philip as giddy. As for his own performance, Tubridy felt that “thankfully, we did okay”, presumably using the first-person plural in tribute to the regal couple.

Tubridy had indeed done okay, not least in terms of exposure. On Wednesday, he – or should that be they? – appeared on Morning Irelandto speak of the impending royal appointment. Tubridy mused that where his grandfathers, both of whom had fought in the War of Independence, had a "sulphurous" relationship with the crown forces, here he was, two generations later, showing off "our beautiful republic" to the queen.

A couple of hours later he was on Today with Pat Kenny(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), again commenting on the sulphurous nature of his ancestors' feelings and dismissing speculation that the queen might have been aware of his forthcoming stint on BBC Radio 2. "She said, 'One will be tuning into 2,' " Tubridy joked. "No, she hadn't a monkeys who I was."

For all his self-effacing demeanour, Tubridy still made his presence felt across the water. On Tuesday he appeared on Today (BBC Radio 4, weekdays), the UK's flagship radio news programme, to assess Irish reaction to the monarch's trip. Quizzed by John Humphrys about the pipe bomb defused earlier in Maynooth, Tubridy spoke of a recidivist minority who, though small in number, were very loud and, using his mot du jour, "sulphurous".

If Todaywas anything to go by, British people's interest in their sovereign's Irish jaunt had its limits: Tuesday's edition featured three items on the event; Wednesday's had only the one. But curiosity in the queen's visit was no insular Irish phenomenon. On Tuesday, Henry McKean, roving reporter on Moncrieff(Newstalk, weekdays), filed an item from the Dublin media centre used by the 1,200 or so foreign journalists covering the occasion.

Amid contributions about the historic nature of the visit from Canadian and Norwegian broadcasters, a more hard-headed view came from a British journalist, Colin Brazier of Sky News. The visit was historic, he conceded, but was an international media event for other reasons, such as the “backwash” from last month’s royal wedding. And there was another, largely unspoken angle. “Arguably, the royal family has not been in rudest of health in the UK for many decades,” Brazier said, “so people want to see how the visit goes for her.”

If the UK media have one eye on the monarchy’s future, the ghosts of the past meant the queen’s visit dominated the airwaves in Ireland. Those aiming to do something different were always going to lose the game.

Radio moment of the week

Pilloried for his recent television forays in the Antarctic, Charlie Bird has made a good fist of standing in on Marian Finucane(RTÉ Radio 1, Saturdays and Sundays). His interview with Emma Donoghue, for example, was nuanced and insightful, with Bird quizzing the author about the writing of her novel Room and her experiences as a lesbian mother of two. Then, alas, he asked about Donoghue's domestic arrangements. "How do you decide on the chores?" he asked. "It's bad enough when there's a man and a woman in the household."

Donoghue was unfazed by the ham-fisted query, but it was a patronising comment, however unwittingly made. Bird may be out in the cold for a while yet.

radioreview@irishtimes.com