MICHEÁL MARTIN’S PODCAST career has really taken off.
In the last two years he’s appeared on The Two Norries, The Laughs of Your Life with Doireann Garrihy, and the Talking Bollox podcast. At this rate, it won’t be long before he’s tearfully eating chicken wings on Hot Ones or doing ayahuasca with Joe Rogan (legal note: this is a joke).
This week he launched his own podcast – In Conversation – the first episode of which sees Martin speaking with Mark Henry, psychologist and author of the book ‘In Fact: An Optimist’s Guide to Ireland at 100′. The overall gist of Henry’s book – according to Henry – is that “we have good reason to be proud of what we have achieved together as a people, and every reason to be optimistic about our future”.
Over the course of the podcast – which is hosted on the official Fianna Fáil YouTube channel – that point is mostly demonstrated by contrasting Ireland with other countries. We live longer than those who live in X. We are better educated than the people of Y. We rank however high in this quality of life index, and so forth.
In one illustration of this argument, Henry says: “I know teachers’ unions say there’s not enough teachers but I say… Look at the very recent research that shows that [our] fourth-class reading ability is second only to Singapore.”
I haven’t read Mr Henry’s book but the theme is made explicit over the 57-minute chat. The theme? Optimism.
For example, in a segment on climate he says: “We should note the success. In deciding what to write about the environment for the book… You could take a glass half-empty or a glass half-full approach.”
He includes forestry as a positive, acknowledging that “some say” forestation in Ireland is not made up of “the right trees,” presumably referring to the prevalence of sitka spruces, which according to environmental Mary Colwell, are turning Ireland an “ecological dead zone”. Just to reiterate, that’s one of the positives.
As podcasting goes, it’s quite a premise. Get a government leader to interview the guy who literally wrote the book on how well things are going. It’s sort of like Ronald McDonald interviewing the Hamburglar. Of course he likes the burgers. That’s his whole thing.
“What is it in our psyche that doesn’t want to acknowledge that progress has been made?” the Tánaiste asks at one point.
It’s a question that may frustrate the casual observer, who might be thinking that over the course of a 34-year career as a TD, including stints as Minister for Health, Minister for Education, and Taoiseach, that Micheál Martin should by now have an understanding of why those who are unhappy with Ireland’s progress might feel that way.
Nevertheless, we do owe Micheál Martin something of a debt of gratitude. Some weeks it can be tough to bring all the relevant stories of the week together in a way that is narratively pleasing. This week, we can simply think about some of the week’s stories in the context of how optimistic they make us feel.
What happened this week? Well, the Gardaí restated their intention to hold a vote of no confidence in Garda Commissioner Drew Harris. Retained firefighters – an essential cog in Ireland’s emergency services infrastructure – are on strike, as are water service delivery workers.
Tech lay-offs continued apace with Accenture and Salesforce to cut nearly 1,000 jobs between them. Two-thirds of parents are worried about back to school costs, with a quarter borrowing money to make ends meet. Road deaths reached 100 for the year, an increase of 11 on 2022. Cork City library was forced to shut its doors due to protests by an increasingly emboldened far-right.
All of these things happened in the last seven days — thereby excluding other recent stories of a national broadcaster in crisis, record-breaking homelessness figures, and a children’s hospital that, judging by its cost, is set to be made of solid gold.
“I don’t blame the media outlets for serving us with negative views,” Henry says at one point, prompting Martin to say “There’s probably a value in it somewhere.” A quick rifle through the stories above should show that the value is self-evident.
But then, an optimist’s guide to the week might look at things differently. It might say, well, AIB and Bank of Ireland announced annual profits of €2.2 billion between them this week. Bualadh bos for the banks.
As Mark Henry and Micheál Martin point out, we have also eliminated tuberculosis. Participation in third-level education has increased exponentially. We emigrate less than we used to. We are living longer than virtually anyone else in Europe (take that, Europe). We’re happy with our level of democracy, and we have a very free press (and I am truly grateful that I have not yet been thrown in a dungeon). And, of course, the smoking ban. Sure, it was a while ago, but why not play the hits?
In terms of engagement, it’s been a slow start for Martin’s new project.
Four days post-launch, the inaugural episode of In Conversation had only 779 views on YouTube. It’s possible that the generic name of the podcast makes it hard to find. There are plenty of podcasts available titled ‘In Conversation’. Perhaps a catchier title would have been ‘Well, It’s Not All Bad’.
And yet, don’t hasten to write it off. After all, the podcast follows a well-worn strategy for success within the medium: two men agreeing with each other for an hour.
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