Much as a leopard can't change its spots, so it often seems that Sean O'Rourke is unable to shake off his years as a hard-bitten, relentlessly confrontational and habitually sceptical reporter. After nearly two years presenting Today with Sean O'Rourke (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), the most charitable way of describing his style on his midmorning magazine programme is that he has become a hard-bitten, relentlessly confrontational and habitually sceptical talkshow host.
This approach has its limitations, most obviously when it comes to items on, say, migraines or folk music. O’Rourke is a pro on Wednesday as he interviews a migraine sufferer, Marie, and the singer Iarla Ó Lionáird. But it’s only when he sinks his teeth into a meaty current-affairs item that O’Rourke sounds in his element.
Happily, Joan Burton obliges by turning up for a grilling. O'Rourke can scarcely contain his enthusiasm for the fray, postponing the main issue at hand – the Government's controversial cuts to the lone-parent allowance – for the even more contentious topic of the Greek crisis.
The Tánaiste makes the obligatory noises about loving the Greek people before saying that the country’s economic situation is unsustainable and that it should accept the harsh measures prescribed by its international creditors.
O'Rourke robustly quizzes Burton on this assertion. He quotes a line from a Financial Times column that "you do not put an overweight patient on a starvation diet just after a heart attack", prompting Burton to respond in kind. "If they sign up to the diet but actually, secretly, they're not in fact following it," she says, before wisely letting the threadbare metaphor drop.
The Tánaiste opposes a debt writedown on the basis that if Ireland has to borrow €1 billion to give to Greece, it expects to be paid back. O'Rourke responds by quoting Gerry Adams's argument that we've loaned Greece €350 million, which is about the same amount written down by the IBRC for Denis O'Brien.
“So what’s our problem? We can do it for Denis O’Brien but we can’t do it for Greece?” asks O’Rourke, at a stroke probably ruling out his chance of ever being poached by Newstalk.
When the conversation turns to the single-parent allowance, which is to be cut when the youngest child turns seven, O’Rourke can barely conceal his outrage. Burton explains that the changes are intended to encourage single parents back to part-time work. O’Rourke is by turns incredulous and indignant: “It’s a very strange way of going about it: to make people richer you start by making them poorer.”
It’s an old-fashioned political joust, compelling as a blood sport. As with the Greeks, Burton seems sympathetic to the plight of single parents on social welfare, but she still insists that bitter medicine is the best. Even in hardened-newsman guise O’Rourke comes across as the voice of compassion. Maybe it’s better that he hasn’t softened up too much.
The next personality primed to share the morning schedule with O'Rourke makes his presence felt. "Do not adjust your wireless: this is Brendan O'Connor," Brendan O'Connor booms out as he stands in for Marian Finucane (RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday and Sunday). O'Connor replaces John Murray in the 9am weekday slot come September, and he's here to put down his mark.
He isn’t short of weighty material to work with. O’Connor talks to two women just back from Sousse, the Tunisian resort where 38 holidaymakers, including three Irish people, were murdered in a terrorist attack the day before. His first guest, Marian King, paints a vivid portrait of the seaside destination’s collapse into bloodshed, from the confusion that followed the first gunshots before “all hell broke loose” and staff and tourists realised what was unfolding.
But for the tarrying of her teenage children, King could well have been on the beach where the victims were slaughtered. As it is, her account is harrowing enough. She tells of how she and her children sheltered with other guests and a Tunisian cleaner in a bathroom as they listened to the footsteps, shouting and gunfire outside. “We thought the gunmen were in the corridor,” she says. “That was absolutely terrifying.”
O’Connor’s other guest, Elizabeth O’Brien, had an even closer shave, explaining that she told her sons to get out of the water and run to their hotel room once she heard shots farther down the beach. “That half an hour in the room was like a lifetime.”
That neither women actually saw the violence only adds to the menace of their stories. And when both describe finally boarding the bus to the airport you cannot but help share their relief. It is eyewitness testimony of the most immediate kind, although told with remarkable calmness.
Only Elizabeth cracks slightly at the thought of the Tunisians left behind: “They were the nicest, kindest people.”
As a broadcaster and journalist, O’Connor is not known for his demureness. But in this case he wisely allows his guests the space to share their experiences without any emotive questioning or soapbox editorialising.
It’s a riveting piece of radio, but one sincerely hopes O’Connor won’t have to host any similar conversations come autumn.
Moment of the Week: Murray's mischief
Following the announcement that The John Murray Show (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) is ending, the host carries on as if nothing has happened. Well, almost. On Monday he does his usual opening comic monologue, ending with a tasteless gag about the squeeze-box player Sharon Shannon, who has been outraged by the behaviour of a man pretending to be her father at her gigs. According to Murray, she has threatened to "cut off his manhood" or, as he then phrases it, "squeeze his box". It's an uncharacteristically off-colour gag, and the host knows it. "Hey, it's the last week of the show," Murray says, chuckling. "What are they going to do?" What indeed.
radioreview@irishtimes.com
