New writing + complementary music on RTÉ Radio 1, Irish public radio, Sunday mornings since 1968. Producer: Sarah Binchy. All queries to sundaymiscellany
@rte
.ie
CALLOUT for scripts! We're planning a special Sunday Miscellany to mark Open House Dublin, with ideas and input from the brilliant
@IAFarchitecture
. Make sure to read themes + guidelines below. Full scripts on spec only to sundaymiscellany
@rte
.ie. Deadline Fri 20 Sept. Good luck!
Callout for scripts!
@RTESunMisc
on
@rte
Radio 1 will mark
#OpenHouseDublin
on 13 October with input & ideas from the IAF. They have a few slots for scripts on themes of architecture, building & finding our place in the city & how the places we build shape our lives in return.
"This morning, the first All Ireland since 1949 that my father won't be attending, I'm sure he's sitting somewhere in heaven in a commentary box about to start commentating on this match..." To close, Éamonn Ó Muircheartaigh's warm tribute to his father, the incomparable Mícheál
Our regular sound engineer Síle Ní Bhaoill retired this week. She’ll be greatly missed for her insight, skill, attention to detail +warm welcome to guests. Here she is with Carolyn (BCO, also recently retired), who popped in for Síle’s last recording. Wonderful colleagues both!
"Life without Donal is definitely not what we signed up for. Every day we miss him. The banter, the arguments, the quick wit, the friends streaming through the house, the noise..." To close, Elma Walsh recalls her son who made a big difference in his short life
@Donal_Walsh_
@rte
Few people have travelled so far and so lightly on the earth as Dervla Murphy. Never having owned a car, she has happily cycled the world, whilst living a simple, no frills life in Ireland. She would be a fitting symbol for the new world we seek..." Clare O'Grady Walshe, next
This morning we salute the independent mind and adventurous spirit of Dervla Murphy on her 90th birthday🚲🎂Lelia Doolan Clare O'Grady Walshe Patrick Cockburn Jo Murphy-Lawless Kate Thompson Raja Shehadah Tune in!
#Lismore
#Ramallah
#Kabul
9.10am
@RTERadio1
#sundaymiscellany
"My father collected her from the airport, and as Paris rose up in all its full heart-stopping glory, my Granny drew a sharp intake of breath and said, 'Oh Tom! I had no idea!'"
@MaiaDunphy
is next with A Wanderer in Paris
@RTERadio1
@rte
#sundaymiscellany
"My mother stopped in her tracks. ‘What a beautiful place Ireland is! Do the Irish know how lucky they are to live here?’ 'And you haven’t even tried their fish and chips yet!' I thought..." Bernadett Buda, from Hungary originally, next
@RTERadio1
@rte
#MothersDay
#DaysLikeThis
"The poem will be in Irish; I am a poet who writes in Irish. The muse is impatient, and English is all too ready to jump out, to spring from the pen. I think of English as the hare in Aesop’s fable: ready to sprint ahead, full of bravado..." Next, Cornmeal by
@LNiChoistealbha
"In the 1950s, a man went over to pay his rent one Thursday only to be told his thirty years were up, the house was his. He had never realised it, but he had, week by week, brick by brick, bought the home his family lived in..." Next, Henrietta McKervey
@hmckervey
#TheTenters100
"My friend Joe always wanted to be a photographer. His brother got him a 35mm camera for his 15th birthday, and Joe would buy his rolls of film in my dad’s chemist shop in Finglas..."
@HelenORahilly
is first up this morning with The Mayor of the World Trade Center
@RTERadio1
"The car’s been stolen. With everything in it. Suitcases, laptops, iPads, 10kg bags of dogfood and our passports. We’re shocked into complete silence..."
@TomClonan
is next -- and this script was named a recent finalist in Best Writing and Narration at
@NYFestivals
!
@rte
"When it came to the column where the father’s occupation had to be registered, the children's teacher asked me no question, but wrote down in a firm clear hand, as Gaeilge, 'File'." From the
#sundaymiscellany
archive, Seamus Heaney reads Marked Present (Listowel, 2008)
@rte
"I thought when my father's time came, we would finally be allowed to share in it with others. We would come together in that act of ritual we Irish do so well - a funeral..."
@maryjaneboland
on grief, loss and her late father Michael Boland
#sundaymiscellany
We're delighted that our
#JNLR
audited listenership now stands at 290,000 (up 15,000 on last year). Many gains too for our programme neighbours Rising Time
@Lillylatelee
World Report, John Bowman,
@MiriamOCal
Thank you to all our stellar contributors!
@RTERadio1
@rte
@RTE_Culture
"Swathes of all sorts of citizens criss-crossed the island. There was a destination to all of it, a place or a person and an event to arrive at..." Opening this morning's tribute programme to the legendary Dervla Murphy, Lelia Doolan on the Bicycle and Us
#sundaymiscellany
@Rte
We're greatly saddened to hear of the sudden death of Eileen Battersby. Our deepest sympathy to her daughter Nadia, her family and many friends. As a contributor to Sunday Miscellany, Eileen wrote superb scripts with both emotional and intellectual depth. In company, she 1/2
"I remember when my engagement with Yeats began to deepen. It was when I first left Ireland. I found Yeats to be a fruitful travelling companion. His words had an ability to conjure up Ireland for me, even from afar..." To close, My Travels with WB by
@DanMulhall
@RTERadio1
@rte
"It was as Covid came to Ireland, that I sat down to write Hugh O'Flaherty’s story. I walked around Rome with him, looked through his eyes, attempted to understand a man so many times more heroic than I could ever be..." Next, Joseph O'Connor
@HarvillSecker
@rte
#MyFathersHouse
"It's the light, isn't it, that makes winter special in Ireland. That razor thin glint of sunshine over the horizon that lengthens December shadows to ten, twenty, thirty feet..." Up next, Niall McArdle salutes the Irish winter
#Solstice
@RTERadio1
@RTE_Culture
@rte
"She is soft and sensitive and she watches, watches, watches. At lunch she asks her group what are we doing at the weekend? and someone replies who's we? and she doesn't say another thing, doesn't try again to say another thing..." Next, Teenager by Mia Döring
@rte
@MiaChristina_
"He was a man who favoured order and the proper procedure for living a judicious life..." Declan O'Driscoll on his brother, the poet Dennis O'Driscoll, whose 10 year anniversary is approaching, next
@JacqBetula
#sundaymiscellany
@RTERadio1
@RTE_Culture
@rte
'Patrick Kavanagh spent his Dublin years colonising Baggot Street – starting each day by visiting the ladies of Parsons Bookshop, who fortified his morning tea with a Baby Power. But Kavanagh’s first home in Dublin was on Upper Drumcondra Road...' Dermot Bolger, first up today
"On the train, I thought about my aunt Lal. The quiet woman who was a constant fixture in the kitchen of her sister's shop, whose life was a continuum of service to others, who raised one family and then another without ever having a child of her own." John MacKenna is next
@rte
"Autumn was beautiful that year, with coloured leaves and mist settling on the far hills that I could see from my window. All the time I was growing and cradling my bump and wanting time to stop because my baby was with me, and part of me..." To close, Claire Garvey
@RTERadio1
"His special name for me was Miss Mouse. 'Where’s Miss Mouse?' he’d say to my mother. 'Can I show her to the lads?' 'Brendan, it’s 11 o’clock at night, I’m not waking her up. You can’t do that with babies!" Blanaid Behan opens this morning's programme
#BrendanBehan100
@rte
"Hubert Butler, the great essayist from Bennetsbridge, and my grandfather were founder members of the revived Kilkenny Archaeological Society in 1945. My grandfather was its president for the first 12 years, during which time there was a famous row..." Olivia O'Leary, next
We have Lelia Doolan to thank for rallying the troops for the
#sundaymiscellany
tribute to Dervla Murphy last Sunday. Here they are together-- and if you missed it, you can listen back here:
@rte
@RTERadio1
@RTE_Culture
"In summer 2016, I approached Leonard with the idea of creating a requiem Mass for theatre... Leonard’s initial response to my suggestion was pithy and droll: I’m a Jewish Buddhist, you’re an agnostic Quaker – how are we supposed to write a Catholic Mass?" John MacKenna, next
Delighted to see Miscellany listenership at a record 321,000 in the latest JNLR survey, no. 8 in top ten national radio programmes! Thank you to our listeners, and to all our brilliant contributors
@RTERadio1
@rte
@RTE_Culture
"In the early 1980s, a new American television series called Hill Street Blues hit Irish TV screens. It was a police drama unlike anything we’d seen before..."
@tim_carey1
on meeting his mother's childhood sweetheart, Daniel J Travanti, aka Captain Furillo, next
@RTE
@RTERadio1
A sudden glimmer of earthed lightning, a poet's letter of freedom, and a late love poem:
#sundaymiscellany
marks Seamus Heaney's tenth anniversary on Sun 3 Sept 9.10am
@RTERadio1
with Marie Heaney and poets Gerald Dawe Grace Wells Mícheál McCann Denise Blake
@RTE_Culture
Tune in!
"My mother stopped in her tracks. ‘What a beautiful place Ireland is! Do the Irish know how lucky they are to live here?’ 'And you haven’t even tried their fish and chips yet!' I thought..." Bernadett Buda is next with Mother Comes To Visit
#Hungary
@RTERadio1
#Bray
@rte
And we’d like to welcome our extra listeners to
#sundaymiscellany
— now at a record 275,000 in the JNLR survey (and more online/overseas). A big thank you to all our contributors, many of whom recorded this year down the line under duvets, in hot presses or indoor tents!
It’s easy forget these radio shows were produced & presented from “bedrooms, kitchens & cupboards”. A few duvets were used for soundproofing, if memory serves me correctly! Congrats to all! 👏
#jnlr
"Above the pediment overlooking the Liffey are sculptures of female figures representing Britain and Ireland. The two women have their arms around each other and look like they're walking home after a good night out on the town..."
@tim_carey1
on The Custom House, next
@RTERadio1
"As I tried to squeeze into a space in a corner, late as usual, Brendan Kennelly called out, ‘There’s a special seat waiting for you right here beside me. It’s reserved for the Queen of Cahir but it’s yours for one night only..." Breda Joyce, next
@RTERadio1
#sundaymiscellany
"We loved hearing the stories of how Dad would turn on the beacon light at the top of the control tower, to let my mother know he was on his way home at night..." Next, Jim Culleton, on his air traffic controller father
#1950s
#Collinstown
#Ballymun
@fishamble
#GavinKostick
@rte
"As a person whose first career was as a broadcaster, and whose experience in that world straddles decades, I find it odd that there’s now a whole generation of people who only knowme as ‘the voice of the Luas’.
@DoireannNiB
is next with Luas Lady
@RTERadio1
@RTE_Culture
@rte
"Herbert Simms's Dublin flat complexes used high quality materials, and had beautiful curves, balconies and large central public spaces. From Pearse St to Ringsend to Henrietta St, they're still an integral part of the architectural character of the city."
@tim_carey1
, next
@HelenORahilly
and her father Patrick, who had a chemist shop on McKee road in Finglas East— he’s the subject of her funny and thoughtful essay, Local Hero, tomorrow morning
@RTERadio1
@RTE_Culture
@rte
"I sat in a newspaper library in London scrolling through spools of microfilm when the face of a young child with long crimped hair appeared on a page of the Daily Mirror. It was Jerome O'Leary, the first forgotten Bloody Sunday victim I had ever seen..."
@MickFoley76
is next
"Grey herons, or Ardea cinerea to give them their proper name, are beautiful birds, but not showy. They’re elegant and delicate, with a long narrow bill and a neck that can curve into an s-shape..." Aoife Barry is next
#sundaymiscellany
@RTERadio1
@RTE_Culture
@sweetoblivion26
"Walking out on stage as Hugh O’Neill, I sneaked a look into the audience. Sitting in the front row were three of the most iconic Irishmen of my lifetime. Brian Friel, Seamus Heaney and John Hume. I took a deep breath..." Denis Conway, next
#MakingHistory
#sundaymiscellany
@rte
"His quiet calm seem to spread to the students. Everyone knew Old Man Belfield – or felt that they did.
In winter, his ever-presence around campus late at night made you feel safe as you headed home..." Eilis O'Brien pays tribute to the late Michael Byrne, next
@UCDBelfield50
"You could go there to sober up with friends over hot chocolate or chips, talking late into the night. By day, there were elderly women sat for hours making the most of a teabag, students, politicians, bankers, bohemians, nuns..." Maggie Armstrong on Bewley's is next
@RTERadio1
"Big hard chaws of men carry festive bouquets of delicate flowers. A bunch of auld wans raise a glass of whiskey to an auld pal. An older gentleman lays a single red rose on the burial place of his late wife..." Up next, Rachael Hegarty
@4lirchild
@ExpGlasnevin
@RTERadio1
@rte
"Like his Ma, my son learns differently. I didn't want him to to grow up thinking he was lesser. So, I told him dyslexia was a superpower and he’d have to learn to be patient with the non-dyslexics..." Rachael Hegarty is next
#DoingTheLeaving
#LeavingCert2022
@RTERadio1
@rte
"I saw An Cailín Ciúin in the Curzon cinema, Soho, London. Afterwards, in the ladies’ loo, a woman was dabbing her streaming eyes with a tissue... She told me she’d just liked the poster and hadn’t realised it was a 'foreign film'." Felicity Hayes-McCoy, next
@fhayesmccoy
@rte
"We stand in a devastated circle, two metres apart, on a patch of sunlit grass, and are silenced by our separation from each other and the dying woman we love..." Enda Wyley's Through the Window, about her mother Imelda, closes this morning's programme
@RTERadio1
@RTE_Culture
"I examine it closely. It’s a Sony cassette, 90 minutes duration. It simply says on the tape, in my handwriting, Best of... I sit back on the sofa and close my eyes and over the next 90 minutes I'm transported back to the early 1990s..."
@JackieLynam
is next
#mixtape
@RTE_Culture
"This morning, as every other, the birds are worth it. Hardened travellers, they appear nonchalant as they work the cold sand and huddle in gossipy-looking crowds by the surf..." Fionn Ó Marcaigh
@Scaladoir
surveys wetland birds on Sandymount Strand, next
@BirdWatchIE
@RTERadio1
"The most important aspect of the [obituary] job was timing, as I discovered in the case of one widow, who said, 'Can I ring you back another day? I’m just on the way out to the funeral.' I put the phone down and banged my head off the desk..."
@AkaPaulHoward
is next
#NightDivine
"The air felt lighter and as we painted walls, the house seemed to wake up from its recent years of neglect. We marvelled at the ceiling heights and the beautiful coving at the top of walls that are still smooth after decades..." A Home Reborn by
@barbarascully
, next
@RTERadio1
‘We were quite star struck.’ Jackie Lynam on blagging her way into interviewing the Hothouse Flowers for her school magazine... just now
@RTERadio1
@RTE_Culture
"It is 5am and I lay my head beside yours, like always. Your dappled ears are poking out of the blanket you're wrapped in, waiting for me to cuddle you the way you prefer, your tiny front paws placed around each other..." Next, Missy, by Mia Döring
@MiaChristina_
@RTERadio1
"I was born between the Creggan and the Bogside
to the sounds of crowds and smashing glass,
by the river Foyle with its suicides and rip tides.
I thought that city was nothing less
than the whole and rain-domed universe..." To close, Derry, a poem by Colette Bryce
@RTERadio1
"In her late 50s, she decided to trace her roots. I felt that she might have left it a bit too late..." Feeding The Chickens by Brian Daly, about his mother Phyllis, fostered as a baby, and her quest to find her true identity, is first up this morning
#sundaymiscellany
@RTE
"Because my brain can't memorise facial details, I pretend to recognise anyone who nods at me. I greet folk with a generic 'There you are now,' desperately hoping that their opening remarks will reveal their identity..." Dermot Bolger is up first this morning
@RTERadio1
@rte
"As a page is turned, a finger twirls warm hair
And nothing gives on the rug or the ground beneath it...."
To close, Marie Heaney introduces and reads Seamus Heaney's late love poem Tate's Avenue (District and Circle, 2006), one of her own favourite poems
@RTERadio1
@RTE_Culture
"Dad's fingers would slowly seek out each note, rearranging, until everything was in its rightful place and the tune would come alive, as if it had been hiding there all along in the wood and metal of his beloved Hohner..."
@ciarancannon
, next
@RTERadio1
@rte
#Waterboys
"I spent a major part of my life ducking and diving, avoiding anything that involved having to read in public. From the old excuse, I haven't my reading glasses, to, Would you look at the size of that print, they must be trying to save paper!" John Forkin is up first this morning
"The waitress who came over with his order was 19 year old Una O'Keeffe from Blackrock in Dublin. 'He looked at me and told me, you have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. Will you marry me?'"
@DeeMcQuillan
is next with the story of Harry Nilsson's Irish love
@RTERadio1
"Venice is beautiful; everyone knows that. But it’s the spirit of the place that captured my heart all those years ago and still holds it in its grasp. Goethe was spot on - ‘Venice can only ever be compared to itself’..." Roslyn Dee is next
#bellavenezia
@RTERadio1
@RTE_Culture
"Dorothy MacArdle was on the anti-Treaty side in the Civil War and served time in Mountjoy and Kilmainham gaols. She used this time to write a number of supernatural stories, published in 1924. By then she had been dismissed from her teaching post at Alex..." Karl O'Neill is next
"As a child I stammered in most situations. In shops, in the classroom, at home, on the bus, or anywhere when I was trying to answer a simple question. In front of strangers, but also with family and friends..." Mark Brennock is up first this morning
#TheLastWaltz
@RTERadio1
"My grandfather had a contented proud smile. He was exactly where he wanted to be..." Emma O'Doherty from Donegal is next on how her grandfather got to stage an am-dram production of Translations in the Olympia -- and it was a big hit
@LiffordPlayers
#BrianFriel
@RTERadio1
@rte
"Shy and unassuming, Christy Hennessy was an unlikely and reluctant celebrity. He left school at 11, probably due to his severe dyslexia, and his first job was as a messenger boy, which he recounts in the song of the same name..." A Very Kerry London man by Mary Wall, next
@rte
"After the Springsteen concert in the RDS, I said to our grandson, 'I’m hoarse now.' And he said, 'that was all the shouting you were doing, Granny.' I hope he remembers me, singing my heart out, as we share that wondrous evening..." Denise Blake is next with Memories in Music
"Our mother was in her thirties when she started this business about who’s going to make the puddings when I’m gone.
Gone where? we asked.
Astonished.
Mam couldn’t drive. She’d have to thumb a lift..." Aingeala Flannery is up first this morning
@missflannery
@RTERadio1
@rte
“Who is that?” my son asked. “That,” I replied, “is nobility, the uncrowned king of journalists. You’re looking at Con Houlihan, but really you’re looking at Aragorn.” Next, Dermot Bolger on The True Meaning of Fame
#lordoftherings
#tolkapark
@RTERadio1
@RTE_Culture
@rte
"That moment on The Late Late Show,
When the woman Gay Byrne rang
with the news she’d won a car
in the phone-in quiz broke down,
telling him her daughter had died
in a car crash just days before,
we were stunned, lost for words..." To close, Paddy Moran
#BrendanKennelly
#Begin
"When Paris fell to the Germans...as a Russian born Jew, Paul Leon was in immediate and terrible danger. But he believed he had a duty to save as many of Joyce’s papers as he could, including one of the original drafts of Ulysses." Emer O'Kelly is next
#Ulysses100
@RTERadio1
"I open the back door into the farmhouse and the dogs come bounding towards me. I smell the roast lamb, onions, carrots and potatoes cooking. His face lights up as I approach him, his arms outstretched for a hug..." To close, Kate Carty on Sunday afternoons with her uncle Marty
"The speech therapist took one look at my name on the form and said, Convent girl? Yeah, I see a lot of you. The nuns teach you good manners but to suppress your rage..." Mary Kate O'Flanagan, next, on losing, and finding her voice
@marykaterose
@RTERadio1
@RTE_Culture
@rte
"I was not used to seeing soldiers in real life. And I certainly wasn’t used to having one stand in my train compartment with a large gun over his shoulder. He looked at my passport photo, then back to my face. Neither seemed to please him..."
@LesHaricotsVert
is next
@EnnisBrass
"She elevated Irish vernacular clothing to high fashion and dressed women like Jackie Kennedy, Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Taylor..."
@DeeMcQuillan
marks the centenary of "national treasure" Sybil Connolly, whose design pieces are held at
@HuntMuseum
@RTERadio1
@RTE_Culture
"It’s far from literary lunches and arts festivals I was reared, on a small farm about 40 miles from here in North Galway. I don’t keep cattle now, but I have maintained the tradition of ass husbandry, keeping three or more ladies at a time..." Anne Marie Kennedy, next
#Portumna
"I never thought it was strange that my father went to work clean as a new pin, and returned covered from head to toe in thick black coal dust." This week on
#sundaymiscellany
, writers remember the Arigna coal mines, 30 years after their closure
@arignaminingexp
@RTE_Culture
"Music was alive in the Galway pubs but there were few formal concerts. One evening my friend David said, "Ollie, you've loads of time, why don’t you bring the Chieftains to Galway. You’re always playing their music..."
@JenningsOllie
on a rookie promoter's baptism by fire, next
"We left Kilkenny early. Just him and me in our blue Fiat Ritmo. I got to sit in the front all the way." To close, The 1982 All-Ireland Hurling Final: A Love Letter by Feargal Purcell
#sundaymiscellany
#kilkennyvlimerick
@RTERadio1
@rte
"I had adored the band Hothouse Flowers since their song Don’t Go had taken over the Irish airwaves. My dream was to interview the band for my school magazine. But how?" By Invitation Only by
@JackieLynam
is next
@hothouseflowers
#RIPLeoBarnes
@RTERadio1
"One day in the supermarket, I watched a woman do one of those cookery demonstrations. When I asked her for the recipe she turned, smiled, handed me a piece of paper and laughed, saying, ‘As if you are ever going to cook this...'"
@tim_carey1
is next
#sundaymiscellany
@RTERadio1
So sorry to hear today of the loss of the great Dervla Murphy. Our condolences to her family and her many friends, among them those who contributed such warm tributes to this special programme we broadcast last November for her 90th birthday. Listen back at the link below
We have Lelia Doolan to thank for rallying the troops for the
#sundaymiscellany
tribute to Dervla Murphy last Sunday. Here they are together-- and if you missed it, you can listen back here:
@rte
@RTERadio1
@RTE_Culture
"And is there any love like the love of a girl for her Dad? All those days together exploring the barns and woods around New Ross and Tramore, lifted so high I could look inside a nest and realise how fragile the eggs were, how easily they could be broken..." Next,
@LaniohanlonO
"Our training group ranged in age from 30 to 60. We were all shapes and abilities. There were Irish, Italian, American, English. I’d forgotten how much fun chasing a ball around a field with a bunch of other men could be..."
@tim_carey1
on his late blooming hurling career, next
A Teenage Emigrant is next by
@lizzienugent
: "I had £60 and my cousin’s address in my handbag, but as I needed to equip myself for my new life as a Londoner, I spent £25 in the ferry's duty-free on 200 Silk Cut Purple and a bottle of Malibu..."
#sundaymiscellany
@RTERadio1
@rte
"That October evening, Thomas Lacey walked the island alone, then returned home, lit a fire and set three places at the kitchen table for himself and for his lost sons. He prayed they would send him a sign that they were at rest..." Last to Leave by Breda Joyce, next
#Inishark
"I remember it all so vividly. Though we had to catch the bus in Gweedore before 7am, I’d stayed up the night before till 2am listening to Mark Cagney do a full Night Train show of Bruce's music on Radio 2..." Next, Cathal Ó Gallchóir on his first Springsteen gig, Slane 1985