OPINION: Where are the culchies on RTE? Comments on 2 Johnnies leave sour taste

RTE's 2FM is going through a bit of an existential crisis at the moment. It has shelled four high-profile stars in the shape of the 2 Johnnies, Doireann Garrihy and Jennifer Zamparelli. I wasn't a regular listener to any of their shows but would sometimes catch the 2 Johnnies in particular in the car and it was a welcome change of accent for one thing. 

The 2 Johnnies were unapologetically Tipperary and rural in their humour, turns of phrase and general attitude. Their topics followed suite too; they weren't talking about cycle lanes in Dalkey, let's put it that way. They were a breath of fresh air really as a break from the usual conveyor belt of well-to-do Dublin accents on the station and across RTE in general. As a microcosm of that, the 2 Johnnies were replaced by two Dubliners in Lottie Ryan and David O'Reilly. 

I won't be listening to their show either, but that's nothing to do with their accents; it's just not my thing. I do wonder though if RTE has a cultural crisis as much as anything; where are all the culchies? A column in the Irish Independent last week left a sour taste too. The piece was headlined: "The 2 Johnnies’ show is culchie-bloke heaven, but ‘2FM Breakfast’ listeners deserve better." There is something rather derogatory about that sentiment. What is wrong with culchie blokes and should they not be catered for on our national airwaves? We wouldn't use the word 'bloke' for a start but there you go; that's the Dublin media for you.

At a high level, the RTE top table is also dominated by Dubliners from certain backgrounds. Think back to the height of the RTE scandal and those Oireachtas hearings. There was an endless stream of posh Dublin accents there too explaining their way out of holes and around corners. At one stage, Tipperary TD Mattie McGrath asked Interim Director General of RTE at the time, Adrian Lynch who RTE was "loyal" to and it sent confusion around the room. He thought he was being asked who they were 'lying' to but never had a cultural divide been so clearly illustrated. As an Offaly man, I knew what Mattie was saying but maybe that's because we're culchie cousins in a sense and the RTE hierachy were just not hearing enough 'country' voices in their boardrooms. I remember snide comments on social media about the accents of some other TDs too - maybe we suffer from accent snobbery in this country.

And so it goes for the airwaves, dominated by Dubliners and yet supposedly catering for the entire country. 2FM is apparently the 'sound of the nation' after all but perhaps that only applies to those of whom the nation stops at the Red Cow roundabout. The 2 Johnnies talking about silage and hurling and bogs maybe doesn't represent the nation? RTE seems to forget that the vast majority of the population live outside the capital and we like hearing presenters who sound like us talking about things we're interested in; that's why the 2 Johnnies raked in listeners. If you were to go through the 2FM radio schedule, you could county on one hand the personalities from outside the major cities, and most of them are working on GAA shows. 

I might be overthinking the whole thing but there seems to be more diversity on other radio stations. Newstalk has the likes of Kieran Cuddihy from Kilkenny and Andrea Gilligan from Donegal in their line-up. There just seems to be a bit more variety in terms of accents. When I'm on the road and I'm flicking over to Midlands 103, Tipp FM and the likes, it's a breath of fresh air. I have nothing against individuals presenting on RTE, and of course they have presenters from outside Dublin like Oliver Callan and Claire Byrne, but the string that ties them all to Donnybrook is a little too tight. 

Maybe they should sell up Donnybrook and move base to the Midlands or Connemara? Jaysus, that would shake things up!