Research Catalog

Title

Window and mirror : RTÉ television: 1961-2011 / John Bowman.

Author

Bowman, John, 1942-

Publication

Doughcloyne, Wilton, Cork : The Collins Press, 2011.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xii, 252 pages : illustrations, chiefly color; 26 cm

Summary

December 2011 marks the 50th anniversary of when RTÉ broadcast for the first time and Irish culture and society were irrevocably changed. As part of the commemorations, this book presents a critical overview of the national television station.

Subject

• Raidió Teilifís Éireann > History > 20th century
• Raidió Teilifís Éireann > History > 21th century
• Raidió Teilifís Éireann
• 1900-2099
• Media Studies

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 237-238) and index.

Contents

Chapter 1 -- one carping voice was heard declaring it to be a 'far too ambitious project' 1 -- television as a medium invariable put 'the Establishment of the day on the defensive' 4 -- 'snoring gently behind the Green Curtain' 7 -- Gaelic specially coated and dressed for easy consumption 10 -- Chapter 2 -- television 'would be robbed of many of its terrors' if P and T ruled itself out of ever running a station 13 -- and what if a schedule was 'unbalanced, traivial and unpalatable'? 15 -- 'the shabbiest of Cinderellas while our new ugly sisters ... show off their "finery"' 17 -- 'television: the very word is half-Latin and half-Greek. No good can come of it.' 20 -- 'this thing', 'the peepshow', 'a torture chamber' 22 -- Chapter 3 -- 'a catholic of Irish ancestry ... a go-getter ... and no strings attached' 25 -- Edwards's artistic circle 'was agog with excitement' 28 -- within a week O'Hehir was sent terms 'which I could not refuse and I did not' 32 -- censorship snapped beneath the weight of films impervious to the censor's scissors 36 -- Chapter 4 -- The early newsroom: 'we were all scribes' 39 -- sponsored broadcasting likened to bubonic plague 42 -- 'I cannot imagine anything we need less than an opera in Irish' 45 -- 'television is such a universal art form -- at its best -- that it is hard to despise it' 47 -- 'the opus minimum': rejection would have done O'Casey 'a great personal favour' 49 -- Edwards discovered he was 'not a white collar worker' 51 -- Chapter 5 -- 'a cynical, anti-everything approach' ... an attitude entirely 'unsuited for broadcasting' 53 -- Telefis Eireann 'should take the whine out of their voice' 55 -- 'amazing ... that such a rare crew ... could get such a toe-hold in Telefis Eireann' 57 -- a tale of red herrings, sacred cows, cloud cuckoos, muskrats and coyotes 59 -- the language should be disassociated 'from all rancour, dogmatism and make-believe' 60 -- 'a muddled and a puzzled people' who had no need to 'learn from a Yank' 63 -- Chapter 6 -- if an "egg-head", the director-general should understand the 'man in the street' 65 -- Lemass told Eamonn Andrews 'to get the bishops off my back' 66 -- 'The parochialism of just a few years earlier was peeling away.' 70 -- Chapter 7 -- 'a dull colourless group' shaped by a Dail which was 'tame, ordered and structured' 73 -- 'tales of Micheal Ruadh ... were giving way to those of Kit Carson and Bat Masterson' 75 -- did not want a policy 'to silence agitators or buy off critics' 78 -- not an 'interpretive or analytical' approach: but an 'idealistic and emotional' one 82 -- Chapter 8 -- 'the wish to have what is desirable is not being related to what is either possible or acceptable' 85 -- 'no particular interest' in television or 'what influence it might have' 88 -- Lemass was surprised, sometimes bewildered, by the presumed independence of the broadcasters 89 -- The mind of the Authority was now 'very clearly one rather more of directive than guidance' 92 -- an entertainment organization 'seething with gossip and rumours' 94 -- Chapter 9 -- 'the television camera is a very crude instrument' 97 -- 'as if they were a group of small boys being deprived of an outing' 99 -- Chapter 10 -- 'as a conductor magnificent' but otherwise, 'a mental age of sixteen' 103 -- everything broadcast 'now enters the traditional music bloodstream and will never be lost' 107 -- why does the girl speaking Irish try 'to appear sexy?' 109 -- Chapter 11 -- 'I didn't know that guy was such a mensch' 111 -- 'a bloated and swelling corpse', feeding an 'increasing number of parasites' 113 -- Gorham hoped 'the farce would soon be over' 116 -- RTÉ cameraman Gay O'Brien 'changed the course of Irish history' 117 -- RTÉ granted Sinn Féin's statements 'quite disproportionate publicity' / T.K. Whitaker Whitaker, T.K. 120 -- the government 'regarded this as direct defiance' and had dismissed the Authority 122 -- 'probably no part of the world' where news reporting was 'not at all an abstract matter' 125 -- A poem for Liam Hourican 128 -- Chapter 12 -- interests, demands, preferences, vetoes, misunderstandings -- and 'Nelsonic eye' understandings 129 -- the propaganda war -- 'a war which will continue long after the shooting has stopped' 132 -- 'the limitations of geography, the limitations of science, and the limitations of money' 135 -- Chapter 13 -- what had been seen as a charter for interference was rendered into a safeguard 137 -- the history of the organization was 'one of tumult': the current problem was 'one of depression' 141 -- The would favour 'building a moat around the news division' 144 -- why was it all right for a black woman to appear naked on Irish TV but not an Irish woman? 145 -- The Pope's message was carried worldwide 'due to the miracle of the Irish television service' 148 -- management 'nervous enough', but they 'never intervened' 150 -- far beyond the dreams of 1962 151 -- it would remain 'a most important record of Joyce so long as he is read' 154 -- Chapter 14 -- 'without any precedent in the history of human culture' 155 -- a project such as Strumpet City could take 'up to five years from concept to screen' 156 -- the locals watching the programme would nod to each other. 'I told him that.' 158 -- the cultural importance of the TV serial, an essentially new form 160 -- Chapter 15 -- 'she is the producer's memory -- he probably would forget to eat if she didn't remind him ... ' 163 -- 'the people's very own jester who came right into the living room and seemed at home.' 165 -- RTÉ was 'to be destroyed and curbed' and Burke had been 'hand-picked for that job' 167 -- 'RTÉ would be strangled if the legislation were left as it was' 170 -- RTÉ 'could be badly damaged from ignorance more than anything else' 173 -- 'It was a deferred debt to the people of this country and an obligation for the future.' 175 -- Chapter 16 -- remuneration figures 'bore no relation' to other RTE pay; they were 'quite astronomical' 177 -- 'You can't have an elephant and not have it do tricks in both rings in the circus' 181 -- 'a moment when past and present ignited a sense of the future' 184 -- the Toy Show presented a 'very serious' question transcending RTE's 'concern for its pockets' 185 -- 7 Days, Today Tonight, Prime Time 187 -- Chapter 17 -- 1961-2011: then and now, some comparisons 189 -- origins of the interview: 'some humbug of a hack politician and another humbug of a reporter' 190 -- RTÉ 'was not anxious to promote the kingdom of God' 192 -- electioneering: from mass rallies to major television debates 195 -- Lenihan never recovered from his contradictory testimony 198 -- Who governs next? 200 -- politicians now preferred 'the pseudo-event, the sound-byte and the spin' 202 -- 'mistakes were not the end of the world, just part of the game' 203 -- the 'native weaklings' and 'the wily Saxons' playing rugby in a rebuilt Croke Park 206 -- the 'Eurovision': from Dana to Dustin 210 -- RTÉ's Discovery requests permission to film orphanages and industrial schools, 1965 212 -- how used they keep themselves contented, before this monster was invented? 215 -- to ensure that the client talks, reveals, spills the beans, performs 218.

ISBN

• 9781848891357
• 1848891350

LCCN

2012358073

OCLC

• ocn751735932
• 751735932
• SCSB-1620595

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library