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Inside RTE: A Memoir
Behind the scenes at Ireland's national broadcaster....
For thirty-three years, Betty Purcell worked behind the scenes as an award-winning producer in RTÉ Radio and Television,with presenters such as Marian Finucane, John Bowman, Pat Kenny and John Kelly.
She fought battles with the government, RTÉ management and the Workers' Party, taking a landmark case against Section 31 to Europe in 1991. She represented staff on the RTÉ Authority and on the union executive.
From her early life in 1960s Dublin, to her days of social activism in the 1970s, Betty Purcell has never been afraid to court controversy. In this book, she tells the real story of life in the challenging, fraught and creative world of Irish broadcasting.
For thirty-three years, Betty Purcell worked behind the scenes as an award-winning producer in RTÉ Radio and Television,with presenters such as Marian Finucane, John Bowman, Pat Kenny and John Kelly.
She fought battles with the government, RTÉ management and the Workers' Party, taking a landmark case against Section 31 to Europe in 1991. She represented staff on the RTÉ Authority and on the union executive.
From her early life in 1960s Dublin, to her days of social activism in the 1970s, Betty Purcell has never been afraid to court controversy. In this book, she tells the real story of life in the challenging, fraught and creative world of Irish broadcasting.
271 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 19, 2017
Some people will get a lot more out of this book than I did; I think you would want to have known the people and followed the internal politics. As a book about broadcasting in Ireland it does highlight some serious issues and reflect changing times, but gets bogged down in minutiae of minutes (from trade union sessions and RTE production sessions) so is not great for the average interested reader. This is why I am not giving more stars.
The author seems to be at pains to put the record straight on a few meetings that almost nobody but her will know about, and in some cases a name or set of initials is placed in the text without explanation. At the end she tells us that she felt she had to get the work off her chest, and is finally ready to move on, so I am sure it helped her.
Betty Purcell tells us that she went to university and made her shy self become outspoken and socialist in order to get on in life. Her first job appears to have been RTE; many observers have felt that a lack of workers with actual business experience did not help the civil service and semi states. Radio production in the official state broadcaster was a huge step and she later moved to television. This made her one of the early women to hold responsible jobs in the media, a good example although largely unseen and not a celebrity.
Women's issues were seen as less important in Ireland but that was changing and Purcell produced programmes for Women Today, a radio show about many aspects of women's lives. She skips over the mention of the Irish Girl Guides. Now you mention it: I was in the First Harcourt Company which had a meeting recorded for this programme. We were marching, playing games, in Patrol Time and discussing camping and various outdoor activities. After this was broadcast in the first half of the show, the second half consisted of three women who had not been Guides sitting in a studio making derisive and belittling comments about Guides and Guiding. My mum who was a voluntary editor of Trefoil News was disgusted. I was disgusted. At our next meeting, Captain Vera Duffy told us "We have had an apology."
Politics like the Section 31 Broadcasting Act which banned broadcasting the voices of IRA or Sinn Fein members occupies a lot of the tale; we are not told that a voiceover was permitted. Constraints for political reasons fills a lot more of the tale. The stupidity of presenting ample time on one view in a referendum, because that was the view most of the political parties wanted to put forward, and a shrunk amount of time on the other view, was clearly wrong and annoyed many of the public, as the court correctly judged.
In TV, the author complains about being obliged to make arts programmes and that they were broadcast late "getting only 80,000 or 90,000 viewers". I can assure her that if half that number of people were inspired to buy a book or see a show, the artist would be very pleased. Some figures and scandals of the day are described and their coverage, fraught occasionally. Purcell seems astonishingly convinced that a former politician, President, and UN Human Rights Commissioner, who had surely been around the world a few times, needed a personal touch and a producer she could trust to make a programme about her. No, I really doubt it.
Some footnotes are under pages and the index covers three pages. I counted thirty-six names which I could be sure were female.
This is an unbiased review.
The author seems to be at pains to put the record straight on a few meetings that almost nobody but her will know about, and in some cases a name or set of initials is placed in the text without explanation. At the end she tells us that she felt she had to get the work off her chest, and is finally ready to move on, so I am sure it helped her.
Betty Purcell tells us that she went to university and made her shy self become outspoken and socialist in order to get on in life. Her first job appears to have been RTE; many observers have felt that a lack of workers with actual business experience did not help the civil service and semi states. Radio production in the official state broadcaster was a huge step and she later moved to television. This made her one of the early women to hold responsible jobs in the media, a good example although largely unseen and not a celebrity.
Women's issues were seen as less important in Ireland but that was changing and Purcell produced programmes for Women Today, a radio show about many aspects of women's lives. She skips over the mention of the Irish Girl Guides. Now you mention it: I was in the First Harcourt Company which had a meeting recorded for this programme. We were marching, playing games, in Patrol Time and discussing camping and various outdoor activities. After this was broadcast in the first half of the show, the second half consisted of three women who had not been Guides sitting in a studio making derisive and belittling comments about Guides and Guiding. My mum who was a voluntary editor of Trefoil News was disgusted. I was disgusted. At our next meeting, Captain Vera Duffy told us "We have had an apology."
Politics like the Section 31 Broadcasting Act which banned broadcasting the voices of IRA or Sinn Fein members occupies a lot of the tale; we are not told that a voiceover was permitted. Constraints for political reasons fills a lot more of the tale. The stupidity of presenting ample time on one view in a referendum, because that was the view most of the political parties wanted to put forward, and a shrunk amount of time on the other view, was clearly wrong and annoyed many of the public, as the court correctly judged.
In TV, the author complains about being obliged to make arts programmes and that they were broadcast late "getting only 80,000 or 90,000 viewers". I can assure her that if half that number of people were inspired to buy a book or see a show, the artist would be very pleased. Some figures and scandals of the day are described and their coverage, fraught occasionally. Purcell seems astonishingly convinced that a former politician, President, and UN Human Rights Commissioner, who had surely been around the world a few times, needed a personal touch and a producer she could trust to make a programme about her. No, I really doubt it.
Some footnotes are under pages and the index covers three pages. I counted thirty-six names which I could be sure were female.
This is an unbiased review.
January 2, 2016
Inside RTE for me is one of those books that highlights everything that is wrong with Ireland. Betty Purcell almost just regales in little antidotes of life in RTE and incidentally highlighting RTE's inability to anything but reflect the current political power throughout the ages.
From the Broadcasting ban, to the stories about how Betty and her colleagues 'challenge' the men only rule in the pub. It seemed to me that while Betty felt like she was bending the rules, it came across more a reflection of the elitist power that is Ireland.
While RTE will more than likely never rival its counter-part in the BBC , this book will not be the re-telling of person who overcame adversity to actually make a difference to the Irish public, which it more than likely intended to be.
From the Broadcasting ban, to the stories about how Betty and her colleagues 'challenge' the men only rule in the pub. It seemed to me that while Betty felt like she was bending the rules, it came across more a reflection of the elitist power that is Ireland.
While RTE will more than likely never rival its counter-part in the BBC , this book will not be the re-telling of person who overcame adversity to actually make a difference to the Irish public, which it more than likely intended to be.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews