Radio Review: This week's history and heritage stories were a welcome antidote to the grisly tales of drunken St Patrick's Day celebration that filled the airwaves the week before, writes Bernice Harrison.
And it wasn't the well-worn subjects either; instead the programmes ranged from a documentary about the McPeake family in Belfast to the story of the first witch to be tried in Ireland, with a detour around a castle.
In Belfast, it seems that everyone for generations has known the McPeake family. Chanter Bag and Bellows: Family Notes (RTÉ Radio 1, Wednesday) rose above its entirely unappealing name to paint a vivid picture of one family keeping traditional music alive in Belfast for more than a century. In 1885 Francis Joseph McPeake learned to play the uilleann pipes and he became the first piper in Belfast for 116 years. By the time the swinging 1960s came around, Francis McPeake III was tripping over to Carnaby Street to teach John Lennon the pipes, Bob Dylan was a fan and international folkies such as Pete Seeger came to Belfast just to see the family in action.
Van Morrison said that, even in the 1960s, "they seemed to have a world platform . . . they were the first group who were taking this music to America or taking it to England, getting it to a wide audience". During the decades of Catholic repression, the family "gave expression to an inarticulate Catholic population, an expression of something heartfelt". In the late 1970s they were approached by a local priest to give children traditional Irish music lessons and they welcomed - and still do - all-comers, no matter what their religion. Gusty Spence asked McPeake if he would come to the Shankill to teach, but when he admitted that he couldn't guarantee the piper's safety, McPeake declined.
The documentary had that fuzzy, rose-tinted glow that recollection brings. This was broken only once, by Francis McPeake himself, who recalled going to the fleadh at Miltown Malbay and playing in front of an audience that included the young Clancy Brothers. He pointed out that the Clancy Brothers went on to make big money while "we came back to the dole and the credit union". The documentary was ultimately unsatisfactory in that it never made clear why it didn't happen for the McPeakes in the way it did for the Chieftains and the Clancy Brothers - and it might have been interesting to follow that thread at least for part of the programme.
The First Witch (BBC Radio 4, Monday to Friday), a serialised play by Edel Brosnan, was based on the story of Dame Alice Kyteler of Kilkenny, the first woman in Europe to be put on trial for witchcraft.
The BBC's scheduling was an attractive proposition - 15-minute episodes every morning, repeated in the evening - so that the play sounded like an upmarket soap opera. In 1324 Dame Alice (Sorcha Cusack) readily admitted to being a "social climber, a moneylender and a scold" - now there's a word that deserves a comeback - and said that the only potions she cooked up were for whitening her teeth and softening her skin. Her problems started when the daughter of her fourth husband complained to Bishop Richard Ledrede of Ossary (John Kavanagh) that she used sorcery to kill off each of her elderly wealthy husbands and it didn't help that she was caught chanting for her son (Don Wycherly) to come into money.
Ledrede, played with fire-and-brimstone gusto by Kavanagh, denounced Alice as a heretical sorceress, put her on trial and threatened to have her burned at the stake. Still protesting her innocence she fled to England, where she worked her way into the court of Edward III. Meanhile, her best friend, who stayed behind, was found guilty by association and burned at the stake. Brosnan, who has worked as a scriptwriter on Casualty and EastEnders, kept up the pace and peppered the dialogue with familiar expressions - Alice accused the bishop of being a "thundering disgrace" - although it ended on the sombre postscript that between Dame Alice's trial and the year 1700, 50,000 suspected witches were put to death in Europe.
Also in the 17th century, in Dublin's Phoenix Park the Ashtown Walker was responsible for looking after the deer, and the ruins of his castle were only discovered by the Office of Public Works within the papal nuncio's residence when they were demolishing it in 1986. It has now been restored, and on The Secret House (RTÉ Radio 1, Sunday), Margaret McGurk took us on a guided tour. It lasted 15 minutes - a perfect length for a programme such as this - and McGurk made it really lively listening as she traipsed down to the cellar (where gunpowder would have been kept) and back up to the freezing first floor, which the papal nuncios used as austere guest accommodation.
Tea-time Sunday isn't the best slot and it's pretty much only for diehard radio fans, but on the strength of short gems like this one, it's worth scrutinising the schedule and tuning in.