Explaining the Irish
Brian Inglis
Thirteen episodes of Ireland: A Television History' on BBC 2, written and presented by Robert Kee and produced by Jeremy Isaacs; five episodes of The Troubles on Thames, produced by Richard Broad, directed by Ian Stuttard, written by various hands, spoken by Rosalie Crutchley. And, as the Irish put it, seen them all . .
The first programmes, on both channels, were the worst. Isaacs was clearly disturbed by the absence of suitable visual material to Show the Ireland of a thousand or more Years ago; instead, we had Mr Kee penetrating the gloom of New Grange or parading on the mound where once stood Tara's halls. Why on earth could the programme not have enlisted any of the archaeologists or historians of the period, great gabbers some of them, to reconstruct it for us, with the help of 'the harp that once', or the collar of gold that Malachi won from the proud invader — or such treasures as are still available to conjure up the way of life of the Makers of the Book of Kells, and of the men and women buried beneath the Celtic crosses dating from the era when Ireland Was the last bastion of civilisation, warding off Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, and pirates in general?
AS for the potted history with which Thames !lames led off, it was dire. Mr Kee was at least able to make a coherent narrative; Crutchley, reading a flat script in a flat voice, had to skip so much that anybody unfamiliar with the historical background Would have been baffled. The script even .Inanaged to leave out one of the most important of the revolutionary movements, Fenianism.
I should declare my prejudices, at this Point. As 'a genuine typical Irishman' (as Shaw described himself) 'of the Danish, Norman, Cromwellian and (of course) Scotch invasions' I have a preposterously Pernickety determination to set other peoPie right about Irish history; not just the, .„itglish, but also those perfervid Gaels, the Irish republicans who think in narrow sectarian terms, or the Paisleyites who believe Carson was responsible for setting uP Protestant domination in Ulster, through the Stormont parliament, when in tact Carson thought it a betrayal. Accordingly I wished both channels well; and after the embarrassing start, they both did Well– the BBC very well, It coped satisfactorily with the immense difficulty of sorting out the intertwined strands of nationalism, language, religion, and social stresses; neither of them pulled punches; both were on balance very fair. I am in no Position to judge whether they made sense to the man in the Clapham terrace or on the Yorkshire farm; but I will be surprised if people who saw them, or most of them, have not acquired a better idea of the Irish problem, even if not how it can be solved.
I was curious, however, to see how the two rival methods of presentation would compare: Thames, with Crutchley's 'voice over' simply speaking somebody else's lines; the BBC with Kee, also voice. over, but linking the stuff in person, and responsible for his own script. The outcome showed just how much better the latter method is in a historical series of this kind or can be, if the writer and presenter is as knowledgeable and essentially fair-minded as Kee. He could, and did, use the links to fill in background information essential to the understanding of what was happening in a way that a disembodied voice cannot do.
Periodically however, both series cruelly exposed the limitations of television as a medium for the portrayal of history, Some of the devices to maintain the pre-film-era flow of history were simply embarrassing — notably the Croke Park hurling match, while Kee was describing battles long ago. Others were painfully overplayed — literally, in the case of Orange marches, dragged in whenever the historical roots of that Order were referred to. And Kee's natural and convincing delivery was often not enhanced by plonking him down in front of scenery – and in some curiously trendy gear, at times: were those not 'Oxford bags', in which he was visiting Parnell's old home?
To do them justice, both series employed some ingenious and effective ruses to make up for the absence of film. I liked the way that Thames showed disembodied talking heads against a blank background, rather than setting the people up to be interviewed in a studio setting, or in their modern homes. The BBC's device of putting up an old line-drawing of a political meeting, and then coming into close-up to reveal an actor in the role of the speaker – on the same principle as the old seaside gag, where you stick your head through the hole to be photographed – worked very well even if the quality of the acting was uneven. But in their need for such variety, why did the BBC not turn more to song? Patriotic ballads, after all, are as much a feature of, political life in the South as the pipe-anddrum band in the North; from 'The Shan Van Vocht' to 'Kevin Barry', they have roused fervour in countless Irish breasts – as, in the final episode, we were at last shown.
When early newsreel film was available, its character presented yet another problem to the present-day director: so much of it consists of funerals. As a result, both channels slid hastily through the period from the original Troubles to the present ones. This led to some loss of perspective, particularly in the Thames series, because it concentrated more on Northern Ireland. De Valera was mentioned only in passing: and his disastrous role as the stirrer-up of the Anti-Partition campaign of 30 years ago, when he did a world tour brandishing Ireland's 'sore thumb' (as the campaign came to be described) was not mentioned on either channel, significant though it was. The Republic, de Valera insisted, had a moral right to employ force to restore unity, if there was any chance of success by that means. The IRA were to take him at his word.
From the Sixties on, shortage of film ceases to be a problem. There was a great deal of it, much of it terrifying. But this brought its own problems. Not for Crutchley: her script and delivery now became appropriate to what was essentially an attempt to re-create what has happened without taking an editorial line, Rut for Kee, trying to show the nuances, there was too much good film, too good to leave out; it was hard to compete against it with explanations of, for example, how the workers rather than the politicians had broken up Sunningdale.
The interviews were uneven. Thames had a good number of historians, what with the engaging MeCaffrey from Chicago, Stewart of Queens University, and the unpronounceable (there's my West British prejudice returning) representative from Galway. What J. II. Plumb's contribution was designed for, however, I could not fathom'. I was delighted to see and hear James Dillon, the best orator I have ever listened to in the old Grattan tradition, in sparkling form. But some of the older speakers were • painful. When doing the research on Roger Casement I found that old men do not forget; they embroider, exaggerate and invent. One of the BBC's choices was already, when I Wa. working in Dublin 30 years ago, a notorious blatherskite, as unreliable a source as they come.
No matter; on balance the two series were a credit to both channels. And in the case of the BBC's I should add that the series represents a minor miracle. If anybody had told me that the same television history would serve for both Irish and British television, I would have told him he was crazy. But it has.
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