Remarks at the 2012 Radharc Award Ceremony
Dublin, 25th October 2012
Tá gliondar orm bheith anseo libh inniu ag an ócáid seo agus ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iúl díbh as an chaoin-chuireadh.
I am very pleased to be here today at the Radharc Awards in this, the 50th anniversary year, of the first Radharc broadcast. In particular I would like to thank Fr Peter Dunn, Director of the Radharc Trust, for his kind invitation to be here. There is a proverb that says, those who drink the water should remember with gratitude those who dug the well. Those who dug the well in this instance were of course Peter’s brother, the late Fr. Joe Dunn along with Fr Des Forristal, co-founders of what was seen as the radical, innovative Radharc series half a century ago.
My predecessor Eamon de Valera is said to have equated the power of TV to atomic energy, and television has certainly provided many incendiary moments since those early days. Documentaries by their nature are rarely passive. They make an attempt that is beyond description to inform and often deepen viewers’ awareness and understanding of the subject presented. A documentary film can challenge our assumptions and beliefs and serve to critique and question the certainties by which we often live.
Bill Nichols, the American writer, has described the documentary film as one of the discourses of sobriety that include science, economics, politics, and history, discourses that claim to describe the real, to tell the truth:
“Yet documentary film, in more obvious ways than does history, straddles the categories of fact and fiction, art and document, entertainment and knowledge.”
Is féidir le cláir fhaisnéise a bheith ina scathán a thugann deis do phobal breathnú go géar orthu féin, agus is féidir leo solas láidir a chaitheamh ar earnálacha dorchadais. Bíonn tábhacht nach féidir a shéanadh ag baint leis an léargas a thugann cláir mar iad ar an tsochaí faoi mar is eol dúinn ón taithí shearbh a bhí againn le blianta beaga anuas.
[Documentaries can hold up a mirror for public reflection, and can also shine a powerful light on areas of darkness. The value of these reflections of society should not be underestimated, as we know from recent and bitter experience.]
Radharc
The first Radharc film was broadcast on RTÉ television on 12 January 1962 from a station that itself was only twelve days old. It was in fact the first independent production broadcast by RTÉ. Radharc, meaning view or vision, was aptly named. From the beginning, the innovation and imagination which infused the Radharc presentations brought us into contact with people and places, to issues of concern, to questions of faith and values and beliefs, in a way that Ireland had never before experienced.
The Radharc documentaries were an important element in that process of transformation. In a country which was still completing its own rural electrification programme, the early Radharc films offered a new lens to help interpret the emerging modern world. The camera lens of course works both ways and so the films reflect inwards as well as out.
The 1960s were an exceptional decade loaded with drama and memories on which television conferred a new and at times unsettling intimacy. The convulsion of civil rights movements shook political kaleidoscopes from the United States to Northern Ireland. They were unsettling times for many reasons, both at home and abroad.
Perhaps the greatest tribute to the original Radharc team is that they covered such a broad canvas, from local Irish issues to international problems. Between 1962 and 1996, over 400 Radharc documentaries were made on diverse social and religious themes, not only in Ireland, but across 75 countries. Outside of Ireland, the Radharc documentaries, gradually helped to shine a light on the remarkable work done by Irish missionaries in some of the most inhospitable trouble-spots and famine-stricken areas of our world, including Kenya, Thailand, Burma, Vietnam, Biafra, El Salvador, Chile, Poland, the Philippines, Nicaragua and Haiti, to name just some.
But it was at home that the social conscience of the team found its fullest effect and had its greatest resonance. From the very outset the team explored subjects that established media sources had long overlooked, using the new power of television to bring the full range of social ills extant in Ireland into our living rooms. Early examples include the coverage of young offenders in St Patricks Institution (1963) and Fr Des Forrestal’s powerful ‘Down and out in Dublin’(1964) which brought to light stories of drug addiction, unemployment, gambling, alcohol abuse, and of the problems faced by people with disabilities in Ireland.
The team also brought their sensitive editorial lens to bear on Northern Ireland and on both the social conditions that contributed to the origins of the Troubles and to the events of those difficult years themselves.
Throughout the 1980s, the Archive shows that the focus of the Radharc films in Ireland had broadened to fit in more with the emerging needs of the viewers. In 1984/85, a series of programmes were made looking at how to cope with bereavement, unemployment, mortgages, and marital breakdown. In 1987, four programmes were broadcast under the title of “Up to the Synod”.
Those programmes openly questioned the need for bishops and priests to help modernise the church with the laity. The final programme questioned the present state of Irish religion and its prospects for the future.
The 30th anniversary in 1992 saw the rebroadcast of some of the early documentaries as part of a Radharc in Retrospect series. Radharc itself faced increasing outside challenges by then once the new Broadcasting Act opened up the television market to more competition generally, and in particular, for seeking funding commissions.
When the programme ceased in 1996 after the death of Fr Joe Dunn, it was clear it had made an immensely valuable contribution to broadcasting in Ireland. It had provided a valuable platform, a voice for the poor and the forgotten.
Thanks to the Radharc Trust, the full record of 400 broadcasts has been deposited with the Irish Film Archive and RTE where preservation work and academic study is ongoing. It provides an invaluable social and historical record of many aspects of life both in Ireland and abroad in the second half of the twentieth century. And as it becomes available in digital form, its permanent legacy will be assured.
The 2012 Awards
The inauguration of the Radharc Awards in 2002 and which have operated since represent a crucial encouragement of the broadcasting values and interests which drove those Radharc pioneers. The bi-annual Radharc Awards are presented to the producers of outstanding documentaries which address national or international topics of social justice, morality or faith, and honour the memory of the late
Fr Joe Dunn.
Since 2006, the Radharc Trust has also supported young film-makers at the Fresh Film Festival in Limerick with a trophy awarded to the best documentary film by students aged between 8 and 18. Among the topics for which awards have been given to date are El Salvador, child labour, sex trafficking, deportation, poverty, and suicide.
Is léir ó Ghradaim Radharc go bhfuil an-chuid déantóirí clár faisnéise fós i mbun oibre agus ag tabhairt faoi cheisteanna sóisialta, polaitiúla agus eacnamaíocha. Agus iad ag gabháil de seo tá siad ag leanacht de thraidisiún Radharc trí íomhá chruinn den tsochaí a chaitheamh ar scathán, agus fuinneog, b’fhéidir, a oscailt ar earnálacha an dorchadais.
[It is clear from the Radharc Awards that many Irish documentary makers are still actively engaging with social, political and economic issues. By so doing, they continue the Radharc tradition of holding up a mirror to society for reflection, and a potential window on areas of darkness.]
I have spoken before of how the capacity to change the world still exists. We can create a new world rather than remain the victims of history. The Welsh writer, Raymond Williams, called his last paper ‘Be the Arrow Not the Target’ to capture this idea that inevitabilities must be actively challenged.
“Once the inevitabilities are challenged, we have begun to gather our resources for a journey of hope”.
So it is even more important that we support and celebrate documentary making.
I would like to commend all of the entrants to this year’s competition for reminding us in their work that many perceived societal inevitabilities and certainties should continue to attract scrutiny and be challenged. We need more than ever to facilitate greater public debate on the social, political and economic issues we collectively face.