In an era when traditional broadcast media are ever more squeezed by online platforms, it makes sense for even the highest-profile presenters to look beyond their customary audience and appeal to different, more digitally attuned listeners. <\/p>\n
So when Claire Byrne<\/a> hears a shocking revelation from one of her guests, for a brief moment it sounds as if she might be gearing up to chase the wildly popular true-crime podcast market.<\/p>\n The host is talking to the actor and comedian Ardal O\u2019Hanlon<\/a> about the effect of celebrity on Monday\u2019s Claire Byrne Show (Newstalk<\/a>, weekdays) when proceedings take an unexpectedly dark turn. \u201cI remember being at a party and someone telling me about the murder they committed,\u201d O\u2019Hanlon says, his chirpy admission causing consternation in Byrne. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d she blurts out, clearly perplexed. \u201cWhat do you do with that information?\u201d <\/p>\n O\u2019Hanlon jokes that his first reaction was to get away, but Byrne still struggles to process what she\u2019s just heard: \u201cThat\u2019s a moral dilemma.\u201d <\/p>\n Before she can drill down into the realm of unsolved homicides, O\u2019Hanlon takes the wind out of her sails: \u201cThe guy had served time,\u201d he stresses. <\/p>\n \u201cOkay,\u201d the host responds, a hint of disappointment in her voice as the prospects of a sensational scoop evaporate. (One assumes she\u2019s happy the guilty party was caught.)<\/p>\n She may not be about to pivot to a career in podcasting, but since decamping from RT\u00c9<\/a> to Newstalk in February, Byrne sounds like a broadcaster enjoying a new lease of life. <\/p>\n As her absorbing interview with O\u2019Hanlon attests, she certainly sounds more open. Offering her guest condolences on the recent death of his father, the former Fianna F\u00e1il minister Rory O\u2019Hanlon, Byrne also offers her own insights into such bereavement. <\/p>\n [\u00a0A Gorilla Story on Netflix: David Attenborough at his most chill pill-sounding back where it all beganOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n \u201cAs much as you think you might be ready for it, it always hits you hard,\u201d she says. \u201cIt changes your perspective a little when your father goes.\u201d (O\u2019Hanlon agrees, in heart-rending fashion: \u201cFor the first time in your life you\u2019re not a little boy any more.\u201d)<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just in the personal sphere that the host displays a renewed freedom of expression. When the interview turns to the impact of Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s decision to attack Iran<\/a>, Byrne doesn\u2019t hide her views. \u201cIt\u2019s extraordinary, isn\u2019t it, that one man\u2019s whim can cause so much destruction, death, in one part of the world, but also impact our lives so profoundly here?\u201d she says. <\/p>\n Her tone is more one of fatalistic wonder than seething anger, but it\u2019s still a notable moment. (Having chided Byrne in a recent column for being overly circumspect about Trump\u2019s actions, I stand duly castigated.)<\/p>\n Other encounters speak of the presenter\u2019s more free-flowing approach. Speaking to the former Connacht rugby player Fergus Farrell about his unlikely recovery from a catastrophic spinal injury, Byrne sympathetically quizzes him on the physical and mental trauma he endured along the way.<\/p>\n But as Farrell recounts how seven months in rehab was followed by a stay in a psychiatric ward \u2013 \u201cI had time to declutter\u201d \u2013 and how, after the failure of a subsequent charity rowing challenge, he sought counselling, the host takes on a note of genuine concern: \u201cAre you dealing with what happened to you or are you trying to climb a mountain all of the time?\u201d <\/p>\n When Farrell remarks that the question has never arisen in his counselling treatment, Byrne\u2019s reaction punctures any awkwardness. \u201cWhat a can of worms we\u2019ve opened,\u201d she says with a chuckle. Fortunately, Farrell says he\u2019s now in a good place.<\/p>\n [\u00a0David McCullagh is a drawler whose sensitivity training needs a tweak, but it worksOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n As indeed is Byrne. That she has comfortably settled into the mid-morning slot formerly occupied by Pat Kenny is hardly a surprise, given her pedigree as a current affairs presenter. But in her reflective asides and easy-going flourishes she is showing a refreshing new side to her on-air persona. <\/p>\n With no audience figures due until next month, it\u2019s a bit early to say she\u2019s slaying it, but Byrne has taken to her new role with applaudable conviction.<\/p>\n Loosening up has never been a problem for Se\u00e1n Moncrieff (Newstalk, weekdays), whose demeanour couldn\u2019t be more relaxed if he turned up at the studio in sweatpants and flip-flops. (Who knows? Maybe he does.) But, as the longest-serving presenter at Newstalk, he has built his show on more than insouciance; the real key to Moncrieff\u2019s longevity is his ability to treat serious subjects in an unorthodox way, and vice versa.<\/p>\n So, amid obviously niche items, such as the sale of a life jacket from the Titanic, Moncrieff filters hardy perennials of public discourse, such as religion and class, through a skewed lens. For instance, hearing that the conservative US pundit Sean Hannity has quit the Catholic Church in protest at the Pope\u2019s anti-war statements, the host invites Michael Nugent of Atheist Ireland to outline the labyrinthine process of formally leaving the faith.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, he investigates the concept of poshness with the etiquette consultant Brenda Hyland Beirne, who insists that the English obsession with social status has no equivalent in Ireland. \u201cThere\u2019s no division today, in my eyes anyway,\u201d she says, suggesting her glasses possess a rosy tint, as well as causing Moncrieff to splutter in disbelief: \u201cReally?\u201d <\/p>\n In response, he ventures that being an \u201cetiquette consultant\u201d is posh. \u201cEtiquette is about respect,\u201d Hyland Beirne replies, her immaculate affability underscoring her own respectful attitude, even if she can\u2019t convince her host on the innate egalitarianism of Irish society.<\/p>\n [\u00a0This had never happened to me before. I was on the plane and a woman said: \u2018You\u2019re in my seat\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n Sometimes, however, Moncrieff covers a topic so critical that his mood cannot but be sober, as when he talks to the human rights monitor Sam Simpson about the displacement of Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the West Bank<\/a>. The presenter restricts his contributions to pertinent questions as his guest recounts what he has witnessed in the Occupied Territory: \u201cThey\u2019re really being ethnically cleansed, and I use that word advisedly.\u201d<\/p>\n Simpson details how armed settlers seize land from local farmers almost overnight, with the banished Palestinians being corralled into crowded urban areas. (He uses the charged term \u201cWarsaw ghettos\u201d.) Moreover, Simpson says the pace of such land grabs \u2013 illegal under international law \u2013 has grown exponentially since his previous visits, \u201clike a snowball\u201d. No wonder Moncrieff is reduced to the odd gobsmacked \u201cyeah\u201d. Some people are unabashed about their crimes, no matter how brazen.<\/p>\n Moment of the week<\/p>\n Two weeks into Radio 1\u2019s station-wide sonic rebrand, rumblings of discontent can be heard on Liveline (weekdays), with callers\u2019 ire particularly stoked by the culling of the signature tune to the venerable weekly new-writing compendium Sunday Miscellany, ever-present since the programme\u2019s debut in 1968. <\/p>\n There\u2019s ample testament to the Proustian qualities of Samuel Scheidt\u2019s composition Galliard Battaglia, as well as bafflement at its being sacrificed for the kind of jingle that, as one caller acidly remarks, \u201csounds like it could have been written on an iPhone\u201d. <\/p>\n