2RN and the Origins of Irish Radio (review)

Radio Telefís Éireann has a longstanding tradition of marking the milestones in broadcasting history through retrospective programs and publications. In addition to the organization's primary obligation of providing quality radio and television broadcasts to the Irish public, Ireland's national broadcasting service has labored to publicize and preserve its own history. Richard Pine's 2 RN and the Origins of Irish Radio furthers the RTÉ tradition in having been occasioned by an anniversary, solicited by RTÉ, and written by an insider. The volume is the first in a series commemorating Irish radio's seventy-fifth anniversary, "Broadcasting and Irish Society," edited by Pine, who worked for RTÉ for twenty-five years before retiring in 1999.

Despite its official origins, Pine's account of the inception of 2RN, Ireland's first radio service, is not bound by the imperative to fete the broadcasting service; nor does he chronicle its development over several decades, as his precursors have typically done in, for example, former RTÉ Director Maurice Gorham's Forty Years of Irish Broadcasting. Pine instead scrutinizes one particularly inglorious episode in Ireland's broadcasting history—a scandal that erupted in 1923, during the final planning stages of the radio service, over the quid pro quo between Darrell Figgis, an esteemed member of the Dáil with impeccable republican credentials, and Andrew Belton, a Machiavellian, London-based entrepreneur. The so-called Figgis-Belton affair hinged on the question of whether or not Figgis—who had accepted campaign contributions from Belton—had unduly used his influence within the government to advance Belton's financial schemes, particularly Belton's application to establish and manage the Irish Broadcasting Company (IBC), a consortium of five firms. In focusing on the affair and its aftermath, Pine directs attention to an ordeal that strongly influenced the character and structure of early Irish radio; indeed, had the dubious alliance between Figgis and Belton not been uncovered, Irish broadcasting would almost certainly have begun as a commercial rather than a state-run venture. Pine's account of the commotion equally illuminates the nascent political culture within the Free State, the "complex social and political web of vested and incipient interests," and the vulnerability of the government to ethical lapses among elected officials and other destabilizing influences after the Irish civil war.

The third chapter, "The White Paper and the Wireless Report," is the pivotal chapter in Pine's study. Although earlier chapters offer important contextual information, such as the history of the republicans' illicit uses of radio during the revolutionary period, which explains some of the anxiety over the new medium during the Free State's first years, and the last two chapters finish the story of radio's vexed beginning by describing, respectively, the reaction to the scandal and the vicissitudes of the service that finally emerged in 1926, these chapters essentially buttress the dramatic middle one devoted to the exposure and management of the scandal. Pine details how "the fortunes of broadcasting lay in the hands" of a few Dáil members after a special "Wireless Committee" was appointed—surprisingly on Figgis's own suggestion—to investigate Post-master General J. J. Walsh's plan to delegate control over Irish radio to Belton and the IBC. Pine not only transcribes key interviews conducted by the committee members but also sketches the biographies of many of the figures involved in the investigation. In doing so, he reconstructs this watershed moment in a lively and well-researched manner, and succeeds in highlighting both the problems that beset the planning of the radio service and Cosgrave government's instability. Pine also willy-nilly shows the hard work and strides made by some elected officials. Indeed, the committee members emerge as heroes of sorts for their efforts: they met thirty-seven times between January and March of 1924, and produced three interim reports before issuing a final one, "The Wireless Report," calling for a public...