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Case Study Overview

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Jimmy Condon

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Jimmy Condon

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October 16 2011

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How did the early pioneering generation of television broadcasters keep the politicians, the bishops and the Gaeilgoiri at bay and carve out an independent role for the station? And how did the station establish such a reach to its audience and accelerate the transformation of Irish society in the past half-century?

After one year of the new station and speaking to the television professionals themselves at the inaugural Jacobs Television Awards, the Taoiseach Sean Lemass characterised the first year of television broadcasting as "a period of experimentation". He expected continuous improvement "so that all reasonable grounds for complaint and criticism" would be "greatly reduced".

In private, Lemass's views were more robust. Among civil servants and government colleagues he made no secret of his unhappiness with the independent voice with which the new station was speaking. He told colleagues that the RTE Authority's notion of its independence "was being pushed to an intolerable extent".

It was invariably a perceived lack of balance in programmes dealing with the economy which irritated Lemass most. And like many of his contemporaries, he was especially sensitive on the subject of emigration. In January 1963, he complained about one such programme, describing it as "thoroughly bad and depressing". It represented "exactly the approach to serious national problems that Telefis Eireann should not adopt". The station, he wrote, should "take the whine out of (its) voice".

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It was in the early years that the template for public service broadcasting was established. The second controller of programmes, the innovative Gunnar Rugheimer, had no doubt that current affairs "should be the fulcrum of the entire programming activity". For him it was simply "the thumping heartbeat" of the station.

He pursued the politicians of all parties to drop their defences and embrace "a more detailed treatment, on an adult level, of the political affairs of the nation". He showed no patience with their timidity in engaging with current affairs television.

Lemass wanted to approve the chair of any televised debate and wanted the parties to control which TDs appeared. Manifestly, he lacked confidence in the ability of many of his own TDs to be "good on the box". In this, he showed insight.

Muiris Mac Conghail, presently to become the most controversial and radical current affairs editor, recalled that many TDs were simply not suited to the cut and thrust of broadcast debate. Some few were gifted but for the most part Mac Conghail found himself dealing with "a dull colourless group", whose speaking skills had been shaped by a Dail which was "tame, ordered and structured".

One controversy which the station covered in its early days was the one that arose following the clash between the farmers -- then represented by the National Farmers Association -- and the Fianna Fail government, especially the then minister for agriculture Charles Haughey.

Preoccupied by the need to modernise the country and all too aware of his short period at the top, Lemass had often shown impatience with RTE when it seemed to give disproportionate attention to the views of sceptics.

(Edited extracts from John Bowman's 'Window and Mirror: RTE Television 1961-2011' is published by The Collins Press at €25

Sunday Independent

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How RTE struggled to find its feet - Independent.ie

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How did the early pioneering generation of television broadcasters keep the politicians, the bishops and the Gaeilgoiri at bay and carve out an independent role for the station? And how did the station establish such a reach to its audience and accelerate the transformation of Irish society in the past half-century?

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PDST Booklet

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Textbook

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Damien Broderick

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End RTE helped bring about change to Irish life- opened minds to new cultures and new ideas Changing Ireland- 1950's- early 60s Irish society: very conservative Catholic Church dominated Irish predominantly white Roman Catholic Programme for Economic Expansion brought wealth into the country- social advancement Second Vatican Council- All Christians

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Website

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Audio

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Various Artists - The Irish Voice: Ireland On The Radio Disc 3

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The Irish Voice: Ireland On The Radio Disc 3

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Brian O'Meara
St. Michael's College, Dublin 4
@history_ST
https://soundcloud.com/user-446138940/the-unsettled-past-podcast

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The foundation and impact of R.T.E by The Unsettled Past Podcast

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Founding of RTE
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/2013/0909/647514-radio-documentary-from-the-ground-up-rte-doc-on-one/

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Raidió Teilifís Éireann is the public service broadcaster of Ireland. It both produces programmes and broadcasts them on television, radio and the Internet. RTÉ's radio service began on 1 January 1926, while regular television broadcasts began on 31 December 1961, making it one of the oldest continuously operating public service broadcasters in the world.

This radio documentary was made to mark the maiden broadcast of Ireland's first ever television service.

But what was involved in setting up television in Ireland for the first time?

From ads in the newspapers for new roles, to the building of the site of the RTÉ transmitting mast on Kippure, this documentary takes a look at the vast amount of hard work, and people power it took to get Ireland's first ever television service up and running.

Produced by Norris Davidson
First broadcast 31st December 1961 An Irish radio documentary from RTÉ Radio 1, Ireland - Documentary on One - the home of Irish radio documentaries.

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Raidió Teilifís Éireann is the public service broadcaster of Ireland. It both produces programmes and broadcasts them on television, radio and the Internet. RTÉ's radio service began on 1 January 1926, while regular television broadcasts began on 31 December 1961, making it one of the oldest continuously operating public service broadcasters in the world.

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A Loss of Innocence - Television and Irish Society 1960-72

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A Loss of Innocence - Television and Irish Society 1960-72

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Robert J. Savage

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This book explores the evolution of Ireland's national television service during its first tumultuous decade, addressing how the medium helped undermine the conservative political, cultural and social consensus that dominated Ireland into the 1960s. It also traces the development of the BBC and ITA in Northern Ireland, considering how television helped undermine a state that had long governed without consensus.

Using a wide array of new archival sources and extensive interviews Savage illustrates how an increasingly confident television service upset political, religious and cultural elites who were profoundly uncomfortable with the changes taking place around them. Savage argues that during this period television was not a passive actor, but an active agent often times aggressively testing the limits of the medium and the patience of governments. Television helped facilitate a process of modernisation that slowly transformed Irish society during the 1960s.

This book will be essential for those interested in contemporary Irish political and cultural history and readers interested in media history, and cultural studies.

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Manchester University Press - A loss of innocence?

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This book explores the evolution of Ireland's national television service during its first tumultuous decade, addressing how the medium helped undermine the conservative political, cultural and social consensus that dominated Ireland into the 1960s. It also traces the development of the BBC and ITA in Northern Ireland, considering how television helped undermine a state that had long governed without consensus.

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Window and Mirror - Rte Television 1961-2011 - John Bowman

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Window and Mirror - Rte Television 1961-2011 - John Bowman

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History Ireland Book Review

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Published in 20th-century / Contemporary History, Issue 2(March/April 2012), Reviews, Volume 20

Just a little over 50 years ago Telefís Éireann made its debut, helping to erode a sense of isolation that characterised Ireland in the post-war period. John Bowman's book Window and mirror. RTÉ television: 1961-2011 addresses the personalities, programmes and controversies that helped shape Irish television over the past five decades. As the title suggests, he is interested in addressing how television opened wide a window on the world while also offering a mirror to Irish society, enabling audiences to see themselves 'warts and all'. On New Year's Eve 1961 the Irish Republic became one of the last European nations to gain its own television service. After a decade of debate and a degree of controversy, an independent public authority was established by the 1960 Broadcasting Act to oversee both radio and television. Television was organised as a hybrid entity, a public service designed to inform, educate and entertain audiences but one that would earn its keep through licence fees and advertising. The medium came to Ireland at a critical time in the state's history, while Seán Lemass was taoiseach. The new television service contributed to the gradual economic, social and cultural transformation that was taking place throughout the 1960s by challenging a number of powerful and highly conservative political, religious and cultural institutions. Stark and simplistic comparisons are often made between the stagnation that characterised 'de Valera's Ireland' and the more dynamic and modern Lemass era, but Seán Lemass, Ireland's 'great moderniser', shared many of the concerns of his mentor, Eamon de Valera. Both men shared an innate social conservatism and an unyielding conviction that Fianna Fáil was the only party fit for government. Lemass had little patience with the political opposition that confronted Fianna Fáil, and this attitude manifested itself in his relationship with the new television service. Throughout his career Lemass regarded criticism by broadcasters as proof that those operating Irish television were political opponents intent on undermining him and his government. He became a vociferous critic of Irish television, lashing out both publicly and privately at perceived slights from the station. This attitude did not dissipate when Lemass left office in 1966 but continued in different forms well into the new century. The party's hostility towards RTÉ, and in particular towards aggressive current affairs broadcasting, remained remarkably consistent. As minister for justice in 1963 a young Charles Haughey complained vociferously about Telefís Éireann's audacity in editing a press release from his department. His relationship with RTÉ started off poorly and rapidly deteriorated. With the support of Fine Gael, Lemass's successor, Jack Lynch, endorsed the establishment of a vindictive tribunal meant to chastise and humiliate the nation's public service broadcaster when it had the audacity to suggest that the state was not doing enough to curtail illegal money-lending in disadvantaged parts of the capital in 1969. After a series of awkward interventions, the government found that it could act to silence the national broadcasting service only as a last resort and in the most extraordinary circumstances. Such silencing occurred in 1972, when the Lynch government summarily dismissed the Radio Telefís Éireann Authority for broadcasting material it considered seditious. Bowman is insightful in linking these early difficulties to events that transpired in the late 1980s and early 1990s, pointing out that when he became taoiseach Haughey gained his revenge. His minister for communications, Ray Burke, became the station's nemesis, following up on his threat to 'screw RTÉ' by encouraging the establishment of a commercial broadcasting service that would challenge Ireland's public service provider. Many critics of the government argued that by capping advertising, and thereby limiting its income, Haughey and Burke were getting even with RTÉ, avenging criticism that had been levelled at Fianna Fáil politicians by current affairs programming over a 30-year period. The Fianna Fáil attack on the nation's public service broadcaster was done in the name of providing competition and greater choice for audiences.The scepticism and outright hostility displayed by Lemass, Lynch and Haughey was not unique. Initially many political, religious and cultural élites struggled to adapt to changing circumstances brought on by the arrival of indigenous television. Many of these power-brokers operated under a sense of entitlement and were simply not used to being challenged by this new form of media. Politicians, clerics and cultural leaders were especially upset with what they viewed as the medium's pronounced lack of deference. The Catholic hierarchy had grave concerns about the advent of television, and this was articulated quite forcefully on a number of occasions in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s by the formidable archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid. His efforts to interfere in broadcasting in its formative years were relentless and ultimately unsuccessful. McQuaid demanded that broadcasting officials hire one of his priests as religious adviser, expecting that he would report directly to him while working within the new television service. Telefís Éireann cleverly out-manoeuvred the archbishop and what emerged instead was Radharc, one of the most progressive and popular documentary series of its time. Led by Fr Joe Dunn, its priests gained a reputation for broadcasting innovative programmes that addressed issues of social justice both at home and abroad. By the time Radharc decided to cease production in 1996 it had broadcast hundreds of documentaries addressing topics that included alcoholism, homelessness and the plight of emigrants abroad, as well as features exploring the role of the church in societies experiencing revolution and political violence in Latin America, Africa and the Pacific. The Gaelic League and supporters of the Irish language also emerged as angry critics of the service, letting loose a relentless critique that castigated the new service for betraying the nation by failing to support Ireland's official language. The language lobby grew increasingly frustrated with the television service, lambasting it for failing to produce quality Irish-language programming. Supporters of the language had been hopeful that the 1960 Broadcasting Act would require television and radio to make a concerted effort to feature a significant amount of material in Irish. Officials in government and broadcasting were convinced that many of the demands of the language lobby were simply unreasonable and therefore not acceptable. Supporters of Irish were dismayed by this attitude and by the paltry amount of Irish-language broadcasting that made its way into RTÉ broadcasts, especially television. By the 1970s, however, many innovative Irish-language programmes were making their way onto RTÉ. Within the station Seán Mac Réamoinn, Aindrias Ó Gallchóir, Breandán Ó hÉithir and Eoghan Harris emerged as creative producers in both radio and television determined to use the medium innovatively. Programmes such as Féach addressed the challenges of urban life for working-class viewers and were often critical of Fianna Fáil economic and social policy. In spite of these successes, supporters of the language continued to voice their concerns until the government relented and set up an Irish-language television service in the west of Ireland in 1996. In the early 1960s there was also widespread criticism from the public that continued past the turn of the century. When the service was starting up, many viewers grew weary of the monotonous diet of 'canned' American material, including westerns, crime dramas and comedies. After the first director-general, Edward Roth, left on the expiration of his two-year contract, he told the press that television criticism had replaced hurling as the national game. Slowly Telefís Éireann developed a number of impressive and very popular serials and produced current affairs programming that found a wide audience. Bowman offers insight into the impact that many of these programmes had, pointing out that programmes such as The Riordans, Glenroe, Fair City and Ros na Rún became important and popular and found extensive and engaged audiences. The author also chronicles how RTÉ came under increasing pressure from market forces with the advent of satellite television and as the Dublin government introduced greater competition by licensing TV3. He addresses how these pressures challenged broadcasting officials, producers and those who worked at Montrose through the first decade of the 21st century. What is most striking in Bowman's history is his ability to address the evolution of the television service as an informed 'insider' offering valuable insight into the workings of television. Bowman is recognised as one of the most important journalists of his generation, and the fact that he was part of the history that he is telling contributes much to this book. As a journalist who spent a long and distinguished career hosting a range of current affairs programmes, he came to know many of the personalities who worked at Montrose as producers, reporters, technicians and administrators. As the host of Today Tonight in the 1980s and Questions and Answers from 1988 to 2009 and as the iconic presenter of many important elections he was a critical part of an evolving political culture. Through extensive interviews of a wide range of political actors he helped to mediate the presentation of critical events in contemporary Irish history.Window and mirror. RTÉ television: 1961-2011 succeeds in building upon the work of a number of scholars who have written extensively about the first decades of Irish television, especially John Horgan, whose pioneering study of broadcasting and public life was published in 2004. Bowman's book makes an important contribution to Irish media history and is most impressive in sustaining its narrative over the past 30 years, when access to important archival material is limited. Although this book enhances our understanding of Irish media history, there remains much more work to be taken up by scholars. Areas within Irish television history that require research include the role of women in shaping television as well as their representation in the programmes broadcast. Education, drama, music, health, sport, labour relations, children's programming, audience and advertising also require more scholarly investigation. With more archival material coming into the public domain in Ireland, there is tremendous potential to address this void and to enhance our understanding of the recent past. For those interested in contemporary Irish history and the evolution of Irish media Bowman's book will be an invaluable resource. HI
Rob Savage is a professor of history at Boston College.

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Window and mirror. RTÉ television: 1961-2011

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Published in 20th-century / Contemporary History, Issue 2(March/April 2012), Reviews, Volume 20 Just a little over 50 years ago Telefís Éireann made its debut, helping to erode a sense of isolation that characterised Ireland in the post-war period. John Bowman's book Window and mirror.

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Window and Mirror - RTE Television 1961-2011

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Window and Mirror - RTE Television 1961-2011

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John Bowman

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Window and Mirror - RTÉ Television 1961-2011 by John Bowman - The Collins Press: Irish Book Publisher

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Written by broadcaster John Bowman, this is a critical overview of the national television station, an insider's 'warts and all' account of the formation of RTÉ and its fifty year history. Published by The Collins Press

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Published in 20th-century / Contemporary History, Features, Issue 2 (March/April 2010), Volume 18

Ireland in the 1950s witnessed an often animated debate about television and how a native service should be structured and introduced to the nation. From the outset, looking to Britain and the United States, the state saw two models from which to choose. The first was a state-owned and state-financed public service, modelled on the BBC. This was an attractive, though costly, option, popular among those who advocated using the medium to provide high-quality educational material that would explore the complexities of Irish history and literature, support the Irish language, and generally reinforce what many regarded as a frail national culture.
The alternative was to follow the example of independent television in Britain and the commerical networks in the United States by granting a licence to a private firm. This option would not require government financing as television would be owned and operated by a corporation interested in making a profit by selling air time to advertisers. As a market-driven enterprise, it would seek the widest possible audience for its underwriters and would therefore feature predominantly imported popular American and British programmes. As a commerical enterprise, television would be designed to entertain viewers. For many this was the antithesis of public service broadcasting.
León Ó Broin influential
As the department responsible for broadcasting matters throughout the 1950s, Posts and Telegraphs attracted many proposals and queries concerning television throughout the decade. During this period the secretary of the department, León Ó Broin, was well placed to influence government policy and keenly interested in shaping the structure and form of Irish television. Ó Broin was a highly cultured man, a linguist who wrote history in his spare time and translated books from English into Irish for An Gúm, a state-funded publisher. Regarding the programmes broadcast by commercial networks in Britain and America with deep suspicion, Ó Broin considered the BBC as the best model for Irish television. He fully embraced the 'Rethian' philosophy of broadcasting that maintained that both radio and television should uplift and educate the nation and not simply provide popular entertainment for the masses.

In the end a compromise was reached, engineered largely by Ó Broin. Telefís Éireann was established as a hybrid, a commerical public service charged with generating enough revenue to sustain itself through advertising while at the same time serving the nation as a public service. When the Television Authority was formally established in 1960, Ó Broin was troubled by the appointment of Eamonn Andrews as its chairman. Although the appointment of Andrews made sense to the Lemass government, he was hardly the Rethian intellectual Ó Broin would have preferred. Andrews had been an amateur boxer and sports commentator for Radio Éireann before enjoying tremendous success in British television by hosting popular entertainment programmes such as What's My Line? and This is Your Life.

At the first meeting of the Television Authority (June 1960) the government minister responsible for overseeing the new service, Michael Hilliard, delivered a sharply worded address, much of which had been written, reviewed and edited by Taoiseach Seán Lemass. The government wanted the new service to become financially stable as quickly as possible, relating the achievement of this goal to the degree of independence that television would enjoy. There was no mistaking the threat of state intervention in his remarks. Here the commerical concerns of the new service far outweighed any public service expectation. The Lemass government placed the new authority on notice that the financial stability of the new service was paramount and that any serious difficulty in this regard would place the independence of Telefís Éireann in jeopardy.
The following month, the new Television Authority met to discuss filling the key position of Telefís Éireann's director-general. This position was critical, as the director-general would be the executive charged with the complex task of staffing the service and getting Irish television off the ground and on the air. From the start, members of the authority realised that it would be difficult to find an Irish person with the requisite technical and managerial skills. Although they were reluctant even to consider hiring a non-national, the simple reality quickly became clear: there were no Irish candidates qualified for the position. In fact, the first round of applications was so weak that a decision was reluctantly made to extend the search. Just as things were beginning to look bleak, an application arrived from Guadalajara, Mexico, that stood head and shoulders above the rest. This came from from an American, Edward Roth, who was quickly invited to Dublin for an interview.

Roth the only serious candidate for DG

One can see why Roth's application impressed an authority under considerable pressure to find not only a candidate with very specific technical and managerial expertise but also one who understood the commercial component of television broadcasting. As an Irish-American Catholic, Roth had the ethnic and religious background to provide a certain level of comfort and cover for the Television Authority. Roth was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and both his maternal and paternal grandparents had emigrated from Ireland at the turn of the last century. He was educated at Boston and Columbia universities and spent a semester teaching at the University of Notre Dame, where he later returned to organise the university's television station.

Roth joined the giant American network NBC in 1951 before moving to Paramount News, where he produced educational films. Before returning to NBC he spent two years working as programme manager for the WGN in Chicago, where he proved an able and adventurous manager and technician. In 1959 the network sent him to set up independent television stations first in Lima, Peru, and then in Monterrey and Guadalajara, Mexico. He was finishing his work in Guadalajara when he saw the position of director-general of Telefís Éireann advertised in a television trade journal.
Roth was interviewed by the Television Authority in August 1960 and made a remarkable impression. The chairman, Eamonn Andrews, wrote a report for the government explaining that the members were unanimous in their opinion that Roth should be hired. Significantly, Andrews understood that Roth was a product of American commercial television and, given the warnings he had received from the government, he understood that this was a critical component of Roth's make-up. In his report Andrews emphasised that Roth did not come from a public service background, maintaining that this was an asset that would bring what he described as 'an American viewpoint to balance our inevitably close association with . . . the BBC . . .'. Another element in Roth's favour was his diplomatic skill; Andrews pointed out that he was impressed by his negotiations on delicate subjects with the Catholic hierarchy in South and Central America and with officials at the University of Notre Dame. Andrews admitted that Roth had little knowledge of Irish life but argued that his defects seemed to be considerably outweighed by his capacity to get the station on the air in the most economic and sensible way.

For Roth, TV primarily a medium of entertainment

Roth arrived in Dublin in November 1960, signed a contract and had his first formal meeting with the Television Authority. Afterwards the new director-general and Eamonn Andrews held a highly publicised press conference, which made headlines in all the Irish newspapers. Roth said all the right things and promised to deliver in one year a service that Irish citizens would be proud of. The honeymoon had begun; editorials in the Irish press expressed satisfaction that Roth had made a promising opening to his career and allayed many fears as to the direction the programmes would take. Other editorials were impressed by the sense of confidence exuded by the 'handsome six-foot-four Bostonian' and appreciated his general views on what an Irish service should be. Pictures of Ed Roth and his family appeared on the front page of all the major newspapers, which featured biographies and interviews with the new director-general.
From the outset, Roth made it clear that he had very specific ideas about television and what type of programmes should be broadcast. He clearly understood the government's position, articulated quite forcefully on a number of occasions, that the service should not become a financial liability to the state and had to generate substantial income as quickly as possible. In interviews with the press one can detect Roth's desire to feature popular programmes that would appeal to the widest possible audience and therefore attract advertisers and revenue for the station. Roth stressed his firm conviction that television was primarily a medium of entertainment. He often mentioned his fondness for westerns, and cautioned that at the outset the service would have to rely on a steady diet of foreign-made programmes. In its early days Telefís Éireann featured countless westerns; thus 'cowboys and Indians' became regular visitors in Irish homes, as the station cultivated a following that succeeded in delivering revenue to the fledgling service. Purchasing 'canned' American material was cheaper then developing indigenous programmes and, given the financial constraits of Telefís Éireann, the 'public service' component of Irish television languished.

By the spring of 1961 bumps in the road were creating difficulties for the director-general. Roth ran into problems on a number of fronts, especially from the secretary of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, León Ó Broin. Ó Broin's department was responsible for overseeing the new broadcasting service, though its powers to influence it were limited. The secretary was a formidable character and was deeply disturbed at the emphasis that Roth placed on television as primarily a source of entertainment. Much to the consternation of Roth and Eamonn Andrews, Ó Broin challenged the authority on a number of policy issues, even making direct inquiries into the content of programmes that were being scheduled for transmission.

Edward Roth survived his two-year contract and succeeded in the daunting task of getting the service on the air. His run-ins with the language lobby, outraged cultural organisations, angry unions and myriad critics inside and outside of government are too numerous to detail here. Roth had hinted from early on that he would move on once the service was operational, and in September 1962 he announced that he would be leaving to take up a position as deputy managing director of Associated Television Ltd in London. He denied rumours that his departure was due to conflict with the government, the Television Authority or within Telefís Éireann itself. He was not above lashing out at critics, however, telling the press that 'It sometimes appears that television criticism has replaced hurling as the national game'. Later he argued quite forcefully that the government should make substantial changes in the Broadcasting Act if Irish television was to prosper. He believed that the tension inherent in trying to run a commercial public service would prove debilitating, maintaining that public service broadcasting was simply antithetical to commercial TV.
When Roth first arrived in Dublin, he wrote to Seán O'Casey in an effort to gain the playwright's permission to broadcast his plays on television. The two men met on a number of occasions and kept up a correspondence. O'Casey wrote to Roth when he heard that he was leaving and made reference to some of the battles and personalities who had challenged the director-general. Roth responded by thanking him for his support and admitting that, although he and his family had enjoyed Ireland, he would not want to repeat the experience. He confessed that after close to three years in Ireland he still could not understand the Irish. This prompted a sympathetic reply from the cantankerous O'Casey:

'My dear Ed, you would be at least a demi-god if you understood the Irish, for they aren't able to understand themselves, and worse still, they never try. Your advent was something of an invasion, reminding them of the Normans; . . . We are a muddled and a puzzled people, envious of one another, so how can a stranger be at peace among us?'

Roth freely admitted that mistakes had been made during his two years at Telefís Éireann. But he also maintained that the 1960 Broadcasting Act was highly problematic as it limited the options for the men and women who were responsible for Irish television. Many of his critics (and there were many) failed to appreciate the tension between public service and economic viability and the challenges that confronted the director-general and his staff. Understanding that this 'hybrid' structure restricted Irish television is critical to understanding the success and failures of Edward Roth and Irish television in general, not only in these early formative years but also today. HI

Robert Savage teaches history at Boston College, where he is co-director of the Irish Studies Program.
Further reading:
John Horgan, Broadcasting and public life, RTÉ and news and current affairs 1926-1997 (Dublin, 2004).

R.J. Savage Jr, A loss of innocence? Television and Irish society, 1960-1972(Manchester, 2010).

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'A stranger among us': Edward Roth and the development of Telefís Éireann

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Published in 20th-century / Contemporary History, Features, Issue 2 (March/April 2010), Volume 18 Ireland in the 1950s witnessed an often animated debate about television and how a native service should be structured and introduced to the nation. From the outset, looking to Britain and the United States, the state saw two models from which to choose.

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Terry Prone

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The second most even-tempered man in show business gets remarkably touchy about the early, the formative, the seminal days of Montrose.

He says that all sorts of chancers from overseas pitched up in Donnybrook in those days, claiming to have been controllers of programmes and producers of foreign TV stations when, in fact, they were janitors in those stations. Those chancers, he said last week, got prestigious, powerful and financially rewarding jobs in the new TV station, and once safely in those cushy posts, set out to prevent guys like him succeeding at home, forcing them instead, to knock on the door of the BBC.

The first most even-tempered man in showbusiness, Bunny Carr, had a different experience in the early days of RTÉ. He was one of the voices used over the short ads that happened at the end of each commercial break, when a slide would sit on screen while a reader exhorted viewers to buy the product pictured. Bunny says he spent night after night urging viewers to buy Belinda baby pants. Belinda baby pants kept him inside the tent while he peppered the powers-that-were with proposals for programmes starring himself. Seventy-three proposals. That's right. Before one of The Suits eventually accepted an idea for a show called Teen Talk, the wannabe broadcaster submitted 73 other proposals which went nowhere. Well, no, that's not quite true. Make that 72 because one of his ideas, he maintains, got nicked - turning up on screen as Jackpot, a quiz presented by Terry Wogan. When Carr pointed out to the relevant commissioning editor the uncanny resemblance between his proposal and the televised show, he was laughed at, and grimly joined in the laughter, because getting shirty would have landed him back in Belinda baby pants for the foreseeable future.

Jackpot and Belinda baby pants are equally mysterious to me, because my parents never bought into this new TV idea. The arrival of Teilifís Éireann, with its St Brigid's Cross, may have meant less snowy pictures, but that would not, they believed, have justified buying something that rotted your brain, your finances, capacity for conversation and music-making, and interfered with homework. So we didn't have a set. Which gave me an odd insight into what the arrival of Irish television meant, 50 years ago.

It meant Mr Ed. On the school bus, in the morning, the week before the station went on the air, the conversation could have been about anything. It could have been about nuns. (They taught us and ruled our lives and hem lengths.) It could have been about our families. About food. Homework. Bunty or Judy (the regnant comics).

On the school bus, in the morning, five weeks later, all had changed. Now, the conversation was about Mr Ed. When I asked who was Mr Ed, all my classmates would make the same face, their jaw twisting to the left and their upper lip curling. You wouldn't believe it was possible for so many people to simultaneously become so frighteningly ugly. This was because Mr Ed was a horse possessed of the capacity to twist its lip. Big deal, I hear you say. But if you say "big deal", you wouldn't have made it as a TV entrepreneur back then, because someone made trillions out of dubbing a male voice so it roughly matched the lip movement of the horse. It thereby created a talking horse (if you were a TV watcher who was infinitely credulous while having no life) and a massive worldwide hit which still, I fear, runs in slack hours of TV and certainly figures on YouTube. That Mr Ed was ever broadcast was a crime against nature, and getting it secondhand through the mimicry on the school bus, as I did, was arguably worse than getting it firsthand.

The 50th anniversary has already thrown up a lot of the best and worst memories viewers recall from the decades of RTÉ. But that is to consider RTÉ television as a medium or aspect of media, rather than as a catalyst for change. While increased affluence and improved education, both of which coincided with the early decades of home-grown television, always tend to reduce repression - the fact is that at the heart of the confluence of factors which created modern Ireland was television, and the new sense of communicative freedom live television offered.

You could say what you wanted to say, and the more it enraged people, the more likely you were to appear regularly. But of even more importance was the profound shift in perceptual positioning provided by the TV cameras. Once upon a time in radio, broadcasters knew their place. Broadcasters knowing their place was a concept that died quickly, once we had our own television network. It died quickly, but not easily. It's instructive to read in historian Robert J Savage's examination of the impact of television on Irish society between 1960 and 1972 - entitled A Loss of Innocence? - of how the mild Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, responded to a request from Gay Byrne to meet him to discuss bringing Government ministers on to The Late Late Show. Byrne had apparently approached a clutch of ministers, including Charles Haughey, George Colley and Des O'Malley with a view to their guesting on the programme, and, Savage notes, "at least one of them [Mr O'Malley] would be willing to participate if he had the Taoiseach's approval".

He didn't. With bells on, he didn't have the Taoiseach's approval. Lynch refused to meet Gay Byrne, on the basis provision already existed for political discussion and he saw no reason for ministers to go on The Late Late. At a later cabinet meeting, Erskine Childers, the cabinet minister in charge of the portfolio which included television, "reported that Byrne had been dealt with... [and] severely censured".

IF he was severely censured, it has to have been the least effective censure in history. Not because Byrne had a vision of change for Ireland. He was personally conservative. But what was more important than either the censure or his personal values, was that Gay Byrne personified an idea whose time had come. That idea was that the deference which amounted to self-censorship had no place in the televisual world. From now on, no question would be un-askable, no topic untouchable.

On the face of it, those who gained most from television were those who - like the Radharc priests - copped on early to the potential of the new medium, and mastered the relevant skills, while those who lost were the politicians who tried to control the uncontrollable and return it to the quaint original role seen for it as an instrument of Government policy.

Except that television is a constantly changing medium, and, while politicians learned and changed with it, Radharc died and the Catholic Church lost its place and its power in, and through, television.

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RTÉ television was a catalyst for change in the development of modern Ireland

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The second most even-tempered man in show business gets remarkably touchy about the early, the formative, the seminal days of Montrose. He says that all sorts of chancers from overseas pitched up in Donnybrook in those days, claiming to have been controllers of programmes and producers of foreign TV stations when, in fact, they were janitors in those stations.

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Impact of RTE 1962-

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History of RTE
https://www.rte.ie/archives/exhibitions/681-history-of-rte/

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The radio service began on 1 January 1926 while regular television broadcasts began on 31 December 1961.