Iraq is torn apart by a bloody Islamist insurgency, Gaza is again ravaged by Israeli air strikes, the revolt in eastern Ukraine rumbles on, and the suburbs of St Louis shudder with racially charged unrest. Grim situations all, but they pale in comparison with Dublin, which, if Liveline (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) is to believed, needs to add a 10th circle to accommodate the hellish horrors seen in the capital daily.
On Tuesday Joe Duffy hears from Tom, who describes seeing three men and a woman with their trousers around their ankles. This inner-city scene may have resembled "some sort of orgy", but the reality was more squalid: "The four of them were banging up heroin in the open street."
Other callers join in painting the capital’s streets as an unending cavalcade of crime and dissolution. Mary, from Drogheda, recounts an unpleasant evening at the theatre in Dublin, marked by aggressive beggars and vocal vagrants, topped off with a man injecting his nether regions. And, naturally, there is nary a garda to be seen.
So bleak is the emerging portrait of the city – a cross between Trainspotting and Hogarth's Gin Lane in these accounts – that even Duffy seems taken aback. Though tales of urban lawlessness and decay are the old staples of the Liveline universe, Duffy says he is "surprised to see it bubble up here today", adding that there is still a "tremendous buzz" about the city.
Even Tom, an inner-city resident, admits that the capital is “safe enough”. But when a show’s main imperative is to produce an audience-generating frisson of fear, such subtleties get lost.
Duffy gets more upset about the accommodation crisis that faces prospective students at Dublin colleges. When one student, Kerri, tells of the obscene rents being sought by landlords – €200 a month per bunk in a single room with four beds – the presenter sounds dutifully irked. But it is only when he hears about a joyless-sounding house in Bray, which encourages “ethical living” among its residents by imposing rent increases for consuming meat or alcohol, that Duffy is truly moved. “That’s worse,” he says, in his best tone of bewildered incomprehension. Drugs and violence may be one thing, but rackrenting vegans? That’s really shocking.
A marginally less glum vignette of Dublin life comes on The Pat Kenny Show (Newstalk, weekdays), when its reporter Aisling Moore visits Moore Street, the city's famed market thoroughfare. She talks to members of a local traders' committee, who are campaigning for the rejuvenation of the area where the leaders of the 1916 Rising surrendered.
By way of introduction, Kenny explains that the traders have been selling their wares on the street for 100 years; “not the very people who are there today, obviously, but their ancestors,” the presenter adds helpfully, if somewhat needlessly.
The vox pop itself is revealing. The traders – Dublin natives, to a woman – all decry the state of the street, from the paltry plaque marking its history to its current “derelict” and “disgusting” appearance, which they say keeps people away. Notwithstanding the fact that even in its heyday the street was rarely renowned for its spotlessness, it’s a curiously myopic view of the market, which may have fewer Irish-born street traders than before but is a vibrant hub of shops catering to all quarters of Dublin’s immigrant population.
The traders aren’t hostile to the area’s current multicultural fabric – “It’s great to see all the people coming into the street” – but they regret that “our own” don’t venture there any more. These are mildly uncomfortable sentiments, but in truth the traders seem more annoyed at the official neglect of the street. It’s more like the old story of the have-nots being ignored by the powers that be, but it would have been good to hear, too, from Moore Street’s more recent arrivals.
Not everyone forgets the convulsions in the wider world. On Wednesday Ryan Tubridy, on Tubridy (2FM, weekdays), talks to the reporter Steve Futterman in Ferguson, the suburban Missouri town recently rocked by riots. It is, at best, a mildly informative chat – Futterman has already given a more detailed account on Morning Ireland – but it's nonetheless notable for Tubridy's focus on international news, not the bailiwick one normally associates with 2FM presenters.
By the time he recommends viewing a graphic online documentary on the mercilessly intolerant Islamic State militants, one wonders if cuddly Tubs is attempting some kind of play on Sean O’Rourke’s midmorning slot over on Radio 1.
But for all these manifestations of Tubridy's personal interest in current affairs, he sounds most natural when indulging in wacky charity stunts, the gold standard of daytime jock-japery. Having been nominated to take the Ice Bucket Challenge, which entails being drenched in cold water for philanthropic ends, he spends Tuesday's show "making excuses" not to do so: "It's just people being mean to each other and pretending it's for charity." But inevitably he ends up being soaked by the cackling presenters of Breakfast Republic, who are in turn nominated to take the challenge.
All for a good cause, but over the course of Tubridy’s show the craze goes from novelty to bore. Talk about pouring cold water over something.
Moment of the Week: Homage to a local hero
With his larky manner, laconic wit and determinedly northern references, Gerry Anderson, the BBC Radio Ulster presenter who died last week, was the archetypal local hero: a bona-fide star north of the Border, he was far less well-known elsewhere. But for all his light-hearted style he pulled off the tricky feat of appealing to all sections of Northern society, at a time when division was rife, while remaining utterly himself. The tributes on his passing underscore his gifts as a broadcaster and a person. He will be sadly missed.
radioreview@irishtimes.com
