RadioReview: On Monday, an opinion-changing, hour-long interview with Mary Gilhooley (Liveline, RTÉ R1), revealed why there's often two sides to what you read in the papers - or indeed what you hear in a courtroom.
For the previous two weeks, I, like many others, had followed the salacious case of Gilhooley, a married woman who claimed she had been harassed and stalked by Vencislav Venev, a handsome Bulgarian whom she met on holidays and helped move to Ireland. There seemed to be more nudge nudge, wink wink than you'd find in a whole display case of seaside postcards. He stayed in her house, we read, he used to "rearrange the furniture" for her when her husband was out (mmmm, even the courtroom laughed at that one) and she plagued him with phone calls. It read like the ultimate desperate housewives scenario, with her only crying wolf when her husband became suspicious.
Well, how wrong it seems we all were. As she said in a compelling interview with Joe Duffy, the real story was the one that didn't emerge in the very public, very humiliating court case. Venev's past history - which the jury heard nothing about before it acquitted him - included stalking and then stabbing to death another woman.
Little wonder Gilhooley, whose only crime it appears was trying to help someone and being hopelessly naive, is now afraid for her life. Just before she came on air, she said Venev had phoned her husband twice from Bulgaria; the stalking had begun again. Hearing her talk about how she felt doubly betrayed by a man she befriended and by the Irish legal system went a long way towards filling in the gaps between the lines in the court reports.
If Gilhooley's case was like a Patricia Cornwell thriller, The Grey Area (RTÉ1 R1, Sunday) is like the problem page in a women's magazine - you can't quite believe anyone actually wrote in with the question but you read the answer anyway for a bit of a laugh.
The idea is that Brenda Power and her guests give advice on modern moral dilemmas and this week, a playwright, a magazine editor and a sex therapist set out to advise a woman who had apparently written in after finding condoms in her dead husband's pocket. Was her whole 20-year marriage a sham? Was he unfaithful? What should she do? If you believed for one minute that there really was a person out there in genuine despair with no one to turn to but a gabby radio quartet offering "advice" then the radio programme itself would fall into a grey moral area, but if you take it as the audio version of a page in a Sunday magazine supplement, then it's entertaining enough.
His music doesn't get much radio play these days but the late Rory Gallagher still has a loyal following and a permanent place in the hearts of fans of guitar solos everywhere. To mark the 10th anniversary of his death, Gary Moore presented The Rory Gallagher Story (BBC R2, Saturday). It wasn't so much a personal biography, there was no information on his background or family in Cork or on any personal relationships, it was all about the music and the deep respect he inspired in other musicians.
Queen guitarist Brian May recalled his generosity with his time and advice and said he gave him the courage to become a professional guitarist.
Gallagher "lived the music", said Moore. "He turned his back on commercial success." But he was successful, going from playing in a showband in Hamburg with a couple of mates from Cork to headlining in the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 with his band, Taste, and backing his hero, Muddy Waters, when still only in his early 20s. Ronnie Drew was one of the contributors and he described Gallagher as "a friend and an influence". One of the highlights of his life, Drew said, was singing on stage with Gallagher. And he was honoured to be asked to carry his coffin. Gallagher died following complications after a liver transplant when only 47.
Saturday morning radio has lost its traditional herald of spring with Gerry Daly's Ask about Gardening (RTÉ R1), back on air this week, but moved to the gardening unfriendly time of 6.05pm. I know people who don't even have a window box but who are avid listeners just to hear Daly get tetchy as he is wont to do with listeners who are reluctant to take his advice. "Oh, build a wall then," he once snapped when someone refused to take on board any of his long list of suggestions for suitable hedging. Listening to it in the morning always made me feel that I should be out in the garden wrestling with my herbaceous border or at least heading to the garden centre to spend an unreasonable amount of money. It won't flourish in that spot.
