Given the flurry of transfer activity in the radio-presenter market, fans of The Last Word (Today FM, weekdays) may be alarmed to hear Matt Cooper, its stalwart host, unexpectedly turn up on RTÉ Radio 1’s flagship news show. As it turns out, Cooper’s appearance on Morning Ireland (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) is not the latest chapter in the tit-for-tat talent raids between the national broadcaster and its Bauer Media-owned rivals Newstalk and Today FM. Rather, he joins the programme to pay generous tribute to the late journalist Ed Moloney, who covered the Troubles in fearlessly forensic fashion when Cooper was editor of the Sunday Tribune.
But while the uneasy truce between the competing networks may remain intact, the jarring sound of Cooper on another channel underlines how integral he is to the fabric of Today FM. The Last Word may originally have been a vehicle for Eamon Dunphy, but the brand definitively belongs to Cooper, who has occupied the early-evening slot for more than 20 years. As he notes on Monday, the show is the only current-affairs programme on the country’s second-biggest radio station, attracting 180,000 listeners a day.
Cooper isn’t reciting such statistics to blow his own trumpet – not solely anyway. Rather, having just interviewed the Independent presidential candidate Catherine Connolly in the final run-up to polling day, he’s wondering why Heather Humphreys, her rival, has yet to appear on his show, given its large audience of potential voters.
“We have been trying for quite a while now to organise a time in which the Fine Gael candidate would come on the programme, but that has not been agreed as yet, for reasons we don’t understand,” the host says, pointedly adding that Humphreys regularly turns up on RTÉ. It’s an acerbic way to express a desire for balance, but it pays off: Humphreys accedes to Cooper’s request on Wednesday.
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She might have been forgiven for skipping the invitation after hearing Cooper’s encounter with Connolly. The host is polite throughout, allowing his guest the time to speak in aspirational (if occasionally vague) terms on signature issues such as neutrality and Gaza. But Cooper also homes in on contentious subjects, such as Connolly’s employment in 2018 of Ursula Ní Shionnáin, who was jailed for firearms offences in 2014.
Connolly’s defensive reflex – she says Ní Shionnáin’s privacy was infringed – does little to dispel her burgeoning reputation for ducking awkward questions. But while Cooper sticks to his task – “Are these not legitimate questions to ask?” he asks sharply – he can’t quite pin the candidate down, especially on her work as a barrister in home-repossession cases. Having come through Cooper’s quizzing relatively unscathed, Connolly’s closing pitch almost sounds like a gentle taunt: “The last word will be with the people of Ireland.”
Cooper’s interview with Humphreys is less charged, partly because it’s half the length and conducted over the telephone. The former TD runs through her pitch as a pragmatic, pro-business candidate in the hurried manner of a pupil reciting multiplication tables, before taking swipes at her opponent over her “hard left” political associates, as well as the Ní Shionnáin controversy: “Judge me by the company I keep.” Cooper doesn’t pursue her with as much tenacity as he does Connolly, but it’s still an underwhelming performance by Humphreys. The host, however, will surely be satisfied that his show can’t be ignored by either contender.
Cooper’s steady style doesn’t always electrify, but he is a dependable broadcaster, not just in his thorough approach but also in the reliability of his presence in the time slot, the latter a particular virtue as personnel reshuffles loom on competing shows, such as Radio 1’s Drivetime and Newstalk’s The Hard Shoulder. Whoever ends up as the new resident of Áras an Uachtaráin, Today FM bosses must hope that Cooper remains a fixture on the station for some time yet.
The stability of family life being inexorably torn apart by the criminal-justice system is one of the key themes of the documentary series First Conviction (RTÉ Radio 1, Wednesday), along with the ever-current issues of immigrant experience and cultural misapprehension. Narrated by the actor Ruth Negga, the six-part series recounts the harrowing case of Sayeed and Halawa, a (pseudonymous) Dublin couple of African Muslim background who were convicted and imprisoned in 2019 for the female genital mutilation of their young daughter, after Ireland’s first – and only – trial for the crime.
The case was anything but straightforward, however. As Negga stresses, the couple have always maintained their innocence, saying their daughter injured herself on a toy. An inexorable legal process kicked in after they brought the girl to hospital for treatment; doctors suspected she may have suffered FGM. Medical experts agreed with this assessment, leading to the arrest of both parents, with a litany of misfortune and missteps following. There were interpreting problems, media reports of “witch doctors” and constant monitoring of family life, while the couple were also shunned within their own community. That’s before the trial started – when, as Negga says, “The nightmare was only beginning.”
Produced by Tim Desmond and Liam O’Brien of Radio 1’s Documentary on One team with RTÉ Investigates reporter Pam Fraher – a companion TV programme is due in November – First Conviction takes deep dive into complex, difficult material, with FGM graphically described. It’s also notable for its cross-platform appeal: though being broadcast on Radio 1, the series is primarily aimed at the podcast market, both in the gradual unfurling of its detailed narrative arc and in Negga’s dramatically hushed delivery, which is more associated with online storytelling than factual-radio programming. It’s a canny strategy by Documentary on One, which has built large digital audiences for the strand’s output.
It also makes for absorbing listening, though perhaps there could be more foregrounding of why Sayeed and Halawa’s case is so significant: as reported recently on Today with Claire Byrne (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), the couple have a forthcoming Court of Appeal hearing for a certificate of miscarriage of justice. If the documentary underlines one thing, it’s that nothing is certain – a salutary message in these times.
Moment of the week
Odd as it seems, Oliver Callan (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) has developed a taste for interviewing British ambassadors: Paul Johnston, who recently departed the post, was a guest on a couple of occasions, and his newly appointed successor, Kara Owen, graces the show on Tuesday. The ambassador talks animatedly about learning Gaeilge – the irony! – as well as her own connections to Ireland, not least her Ballinasloe-born husband, who was an Irish Army officer when they met in Indonesia. “I’m probably the first British ambassador to have a daughter called Saoirse,” Owen wryly observes. Anglo-Irish relations have come a long way.
