What with the crazy scenes at the McGregor fight last weekend and the strident shrieky protests at the US Senate vote on Judge Kavanaugh (the two events had a lot in common!) I needed some confirmation that civilisation and decency remained durable. And where better to receive this than Nationwide (RTÉ1). Last week there were…

I’ve reviewed some riveting TV dramas, but last week’s US Senate Committee hearings were up there with the best of them. I don’t know whether Judge Brett Kavanaugh or Dr Christine Blasey Ford is telling the truth, or whether one or both were deceptive, delusional or mistaken, but I’m taken aback to hear people pronouncing…

It can be hard these days to find a TV drama that’s not marred by gratuitous crude language and worse, so I took notice of pre-publicity for a new show whose creator was reported as saying “the show I want to produce is playful, family friendly and a celebration of old-fashioned puzzle solving”. So said…

I have mixed feelings about programmes set in hospitals, whether drama or fly on the wall as I’m a tad squeamish, but they can be emotional and thought provoking, especially when on the edge of life and death. The Rotunda on RTÉ1, on Thursday of last week, was not ideal for the squeamish. We were spared…

I find myself naturally drawn to programmes about the media, and if they’re done in dramatic form, well that’s the icing on the cake. And so it was I checked out the new drama Press (BBC1) last Thursday night. The story revolves around rivalry between two newspapers – a serious paper and a tabloid. And so…

At the end of last week’s article I wrote about the beginnings of papal visit reviews. It was mixed, with some positive commentary at times. One of the most positive was an engaging interview with the Richardson family on the Ray D’Arcy  Show (RTÉ Radio 1) on Tuesday of last week.  Mary and Damien, the…

I’d need the full newspaper to do justice to all the media coverage of the World Meeting of Families and the papal visit, so I’ll stick to some of what stood out for me. First off, hats off to RTÉ’s religious programmes department and the outside broadcast units for the live coverage of last weekend’s…

While advance coverage of this week’s papal visit was largely negative, there was one programme at least that struck a positive note. True North: The Pope and I (BBC1, Wednesday) was an affectionate, sometimes whimsical look at the reaction of various people from Northern Ireland to the recent popes and especially to the 1979 visit…

With the most prominent Jesuit of all coming to town next week it was apt that other key Jesuits figured in the media last week. On Wednesday of last week, Nationwide (RTÉ1) explored some of the more essential aspects of the life and work of Blessed Fr John Sullivan. That familiar black and white drawing…

As a Catholic, you’d want to be sure your Faith was primarily in God and not in individual Catholic clergy. Too often, in striving for perfection, we assumed that those in the clerical state had already succeeded. Did we not really believe it when, at Mass, we heard them confessing their sins along with ourselves?…