Pat Howley TV comment – RTÉ's neglect of Galway's triumph

AS it was back in the sunshine of 2009, so it was last week in Galway when the truly spectacular Volvo Ocean Race packed the city with visitors in what was a massive and ongoing tourism boost, given the huge international media exposure the event generated. Stone walls are a world away from Montrose so there was no chance of the national broadcaster jumping on the race bandwagon and, accordingly, there were only fleeting glimpses on RTÉ of crowds thronging a city in the far West. This time the yachts sailed into nine grand soft days and to a welcome so warm as to foster the hope that it can all happen again in 2015 in a city that has made the 'Volvo' its own. All the superlatives apply to a festival which attracted an estimated average of 90,000 visitors each day. John Killeen, freeman of the city and President of the Let's do it Global group that organised the event, said the interest generated by the Volvo Ocean Race finale was phenomenal and exceeded all expectations. I don't know how the figures for events like this are compiled, but the word is that there were over 800,000 visits to the Race Village in the docks and the Global Village across the river over the nine days. Even better, the skippers and crews of the six competing yachts are said to have been thrilled by the welcome they were given on their arrival in the early hours of Tuesday morning and on television, radio, and in the newspapers, they immediately set about telling the world about it. They had never experienced anything like it. They were unstinting in their praise of the outstanding reception they received, and the economic dividend to Galway is confidently expected to exceed €80 million. Again, as John Killeen commented to Mary Kennedy when she interviewed him for Nationwide, Galway has never seen such crowds. Nationwide was the honourable exception to what looked like RTÉ's studied neglect of all things rural, but it was better than nothing when Mary and her colleague Mary Fanning dropped in to check things out on the Wednesday of Volvo week, although they didn't leave the camera running long enough to take in that evening's outstanding fireworks display on Galway Bay. Thousands upon thousands packed every vantage point from Renmore to Blackrock for a pyrotechnic banquet of firecrackers, rockets and sparklers which, enhanced by its Disney-esque setting over Mutton Island, was as good and as professional as I've ever seen. The crowds were enjoying one of the best evenings of the summer so far and in a clear azure sky and with perfect timing, the display was ushered in by the rising of the moon and concluded by the most interwoven and intractable midnight traffic jam imaginable. Salthill was magical in the moonlight and while I'm not overly enamoured of crowds, I was glad to be in the throng on the Prom that evening and I felt, as the famous advertising slogan for a range of cosmetics puts it, I was worth it. The two Marys, Kennedy and Fanning, visited the docks and also the Global Village for a report which, like the first gallop of a young foal, was short, sweet and enjoyable. Only problem was that as regards RTÉ and the Volvo, that was more or less it â€â€ if there was more on another occasion, I didn't catch it. By the end of the week I could only conclude that for a prestigious event like the Volvo Ocean Race, RTÉ had made a poor effort. Galway is not Dublin, that's the reason, but cast your mind back to the Bloom Festival in the Phoenix Park about a month ago, which is parish pump in comparison, but in RTÉ's coverage was made to look as if it was the Chelsea Flower Show, only bigger. From Galway, apart from a dockside chat with some of those directly involved in the many months of preparation behind the outstanding success of the Volvo festival, there was little else. Harbour Master Captain Brian Sheridan made it abundantly clear how very proud he is of Galway and its harbour and his satisfaction was such that the message would have gone nationwide without him saying anything at all. A very interesting few minutes on the great work being done on the restoration of a number of Galway hookers concluded Wednesday's coverage and because it had the novelty of being local, in the sense that it was not from Dublin, it was hugely interesting. So much so, I watched it again at the weekend on the RTÉ Player at RTE.ie. It's nothing new, but why are we on such a tight ration of local television coverage? Could it have anything to do with an Olympics that's just weeks away and about which every Tom, Dick and Harry in Montrose, and their female counterparts, are in hopeful expectation? *** A little Shakespeare can go a long way, especially on television, and that's a legacy of the early Hollywood days of phoney cardboard sets and even phonier Elizabethan accents. With few exceptions, a horse's collar of a production was the fate of the more popular works of the Bard and it's little wonder that only those who have to indulge, such as students, ever do so. The story goes that one director, his name escapes me but it could have been the 'Bring On The Empty Horses' guy, discovered halfway through shooting that his leading man, hired at big money, was no longer required, as his character, a guy called Hamlet, had upped and died. That would rule out any life-and-death ending as the eponymous hero, and the bad guy struggling on the castle ramparts while the fair Ophelia faces a fate worse than death in the dungeons below. That will never work. Will you get me that Shakespeare guy on the phone? Presumably no such phone calls were requested in the making of the four-part Shakespearian season The Hollow Crown, which commenced on BBC2 last Saturday evening week. A brave, even foolhardy undertaking, I thought, as I sat reluctantly to watch the first offering Richard II, my only reason for doing so being the big-name cast, which included screen and stage heavyweights Ben Whishaw (King Richard), his enemy Bolingbroke (Rory Kinnear), who eventually takes his kingdom and crown from him, and Patrick Stewart as a memorable John of Gaunt. It was worth sitting through the two hours and 20 minutes if for nothing more than the latter's dying â€ËœThis scepter'd isle' speech in praise of England. King Richard is all pomp and circumstance with nothing behind it and when his army turns against him on his return from a costly war in Ireland, the sweat was seen to run down his face as he turned to square up to his enemies. I've yet to sit through last Saturday's Henry IV (part one) but I'm looking forward to it, as the outstanding production of the previous week banished all prejudices regarding television not liking Shakespeare and, because I've been so long thinking the opposite, I can't believe it. Should I phone and tell him?