The hardest-working man in RTE?
Creedon’s Shannon (RTE1) Newsnight (BBC2) H
E works hard, does John Creedon. I have seen him working on Creedon’s Shannon, having played a small role in last week’s episode, recalling Athlone Town’s victorious scoreless draw against AC Milan.
Viewers would have seen footage of the great day in 1975, along with a few observations on the significance of the occasion made by Creedon and myself, standing beside the ruins of the oncemighty civilisation which flourished in the environs of St Mel’s Park.
But what viewers would not have seen were the many observations we made which were omitted so that other items might be included in the programme.
Ideally, of course, you would just have had the full hour on the match, and maybe another hour on top of that, including the reconstruction of John Minnock’s penalty, with Creedon as goalkeeper instead of the Italian international Enrico Albertosi.
But the Shannon is a big river, and I guess they had to move on past Athlone, and down to Clonmacnois, and onward towards Killaloe. Still, from my own brief involvement, I can assure licence-payers that the leisurely and life-enhancing trip that they are enjoying on a Sunday evening was not so leisurely for Creedon and his crew. That for them this was not one journey, but many, many journeys, most of which were eventually cut out with big scissors, and will never be seen again.
Being from Athlone of course, I am happy to see that the Shannon is being discovered in this way because, for many Irish people, it has been something of a mystery — despite the fact that it is very long, and very wide, and very full of many interesting things, and it runs right through the middle of the country.
We have tended to turn our back on it for some strange reason, though we could see from last week’s voyage that there are stretches of the lake beyond Athlone which are, as we say, “second to none”. Perhaps the attractions of the Shannon are too subtle, and we think it is easier to sell the more “spectacular” areas of the west and south coasts.
Perhaps we just get distracted by the annual stories of the flooding, and all the grief it causes.
So Creedon is making an important contribution here, showing us something that has been right there in front of us forever, but which we largely avoid on our way to other parts of the country, or just to other countries.
Which allows us to cut perfectly to Michael O’Leary (from Westmeath of course, just in case the link wasn’t pure enough) and his appearance on Newsnight to try to explain to the British the potential effects of Brexit on the airline industry — these effects will be bad, of course, as indeed are all the effects of Brexit.
And it is unfortunate for the Brexiteers that in this particular area of aviation, there is one Michael O’Leary who has skin in the game. Indeed, if Brexit was a golf course, you’d say that it “sets up perfectly” for O’Leary; that it “suits his eye”.
It is that thing which gives him energy, gives him life itself — it is a bunch of people who don’t know what they’re talking about, coming up against him, who does know what he’s talking about. So there’s not going to be much of a contest here.
Interestingly there was no Brexiteer up against him on Newsnight — oh, I wonder why? — just Kirsty Wark trying to talk him down, knowing in her heart that she was never going to win this one.
He leaned forward in his seat like a jockey aboard his favourite mount, perhaps with a mental picture of “Boris” or Jacob Rees-Mogg in his head, just to help the old concentration.
It was like he was young again, and he could see this world full of spoofers, to whom he was obliged to explain a few basic realities.
When Kirsty challenged him on the grounds that others in the airline industry are not so pessimistic, O’Leary explained that effectively they are all wrong and he is right.
We saw before us a happy man.
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