Late Late reflections

The recent sad passing of Gay Byrne has led to much reflection on his life and work. An Irish Times supplement on the broadcaster summarised his legacy in this way: he and his programmes were saying the unsayable, were always ahead of public opinion, liberated social issues, opened up Ireland, formed the national consciousness, pushed the boundaries of a deeply conservative country, undermined the very conservative approach that had characterised Irish life well into the 1960s, played a hugely influential role in the transformation of attitudes in the latter part of the twentieth century, offered a willingness to talk about controversial subjects, shone an unforgiving light on the pieties of the day and constituted a wedge which opened a narrow, insular Ireland to the wider world.

Viewing the Late Late Show on RTÉ, one outside observer noted, was like watching a nation talking to itself, while another commentator, in a burst of enthusiasm, compared the Late Late and Daniel O’Connell’s monster meetings in the nineteenth century! No fewer than five contributors to the Irish Times supplement highlighted the much hyped 1960s “Bishop and Nightie” episode, in which a bishop’s  protests about a particular item brought down ridicule on his head , and which is now clearly seen as a symbol of the decline of episcopal influence in Ireland. 

Acknowledgement of Gay Byrne’s huge contribution to Irish broadcasting was very appropriate and widely shared. He was an enormously gifted and hard-working broadcaster as well as being a person of faith who was devoted to family and friends. Media experts will be analysing his contribution for years to come and his place in the history books seems secure. The influence of the Late Late Show should not be exaggerated – as Mary Kenny put it in the Irish Catholic, Ireland would have modernised anyway. Nevertheless, the Late Late had a huge audience in its heyday and a significant influence on social attitudes in Ireland while Byrne’s morning radio programme also had a major impact.  Many hidden stories in the past needed to be told and might not have been publicised without the courage and perseverance of broadcasters like him.

Nevertheless, the media narrative set out above doesn’t leave much space for other reflections or questions. For example, have we moved, as often seems to be implied, to a “land of milk and honey” in areas such as marriage and sexuality? Distressing court cases and daily news stories would suggest that that is emphatically not the case.

Or: was the Catholic society whose values the Late Late was challenging a totally dark and insular backwater? This presentation does not do justice to the many good things in Irish society fifty years ago, which co-existed undoubtedly with well-documented darker realities, including economic failure and mass emigration as well as the grave abuse issues. Those good things included a sense of community and caring in many places, the loyalty of Irish Catholics to their faith, the social contribution of the religious orders, the humour and warmth of many social interactions, a remarkable missionary outreach and a great sense of place and attachment to one’s local area. Brian Fallon’s An Age of Innocence (Gill and Macmillan, 1998) documents the lively cultural life in Ireland in the decades prior to 1960 in a whole range of areas, from theatre to the visual arts to poetry and music. Conventional wisdom about social change in Ireland since the 1960s also sometimes seems to imply that the decline in faith in Christ which has occurred is a good thing, or at least not much of a problem, but, for believers, it must surely be a cause for the deepest regret.

Another question which occurs is about the capability of the media then and now to handle profound questions relating, for example, to marriage, sexuality or the right to life of the unborn. Writing in an American rather than Irish context, the US historian, Professor James Hitchcock, highlighted “the general unsuitability” of the mass media for a serious discussion of sensitive and delicate issues of any kind (What is Secular Humanism? Servant Books, 1982, with the chapter on the mass media also available on the website, catholiceducation.org).

He wrote:

By their very nature, the media deal with such questions briefly, simplistically, and in a style which borders on the sensational. Their aim is not primarily to explore problems responsibly but to attract the largest possible audience. Since the various media are in competition with each other, there is strong pressure on each to do something just a bit more “daring” than its competitors.

Hitchcock also questioned media claims to “neutrality” on such issues:

No matter how seemingly “neutral” the treatment, when certain ideas are given time and space in the media, they acquire a respectability that increases with frequency. Then comes the point where previously taboo subjects become familiar and acceptable. There is deep hypocrisy in the media’s pious claims that they merely reflect reality and do not shape it. In fact the power of celebrity is used deliberately and selectively in order to effect changes in values.

These criticisms are quite cogent but should not be used to justify disengagement with the media. It seems clear at this remove that the Church in Ireland and its leadership in the early 1960s was not well-prepared for the challenge of TV or indeed for the wider social changes of that period, even if such preparation was not an easy task and new forms of media had a major impact around the world and not just here. In recent years, positive developments in Ireland on the media landscape years have included the excellent work of bodies like the Iona Institute, which makes excellent contributions to public debates, the biennial Cleraun Media Conference which promotes discussion of contemporary debates in the media, Catholic Comment which trains and provides contributors to media discussions or the Family and Media Association which seeks to inform the public about the media and to hold the media, and particularly the public broadcaster, to account, on behalf of media users.