O’Connell documentary shortlisted for Celtic Media award

A RADIO documentary on Ennis man Michael Tierney by Ennis journalist Brian O’Connell has been shortlisted for a Celtic Media Award.

I Could Have Danced All Night, which was first broadcast on RTÉ Radio One last July, was one of 450 entries drawn from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, England, Northern Ireland and France with broadcasters such as BBC, RTÉ, TG4 and others competing for a range of awards.
The feature on Michael Tierney was aired as part of the Documentary on One series and was compiled and narrated by Brian. The documentary examined the life and legacy of Michael Tierney, whose individuality, warm personality and flamboyant hats were admired by the people of Ennis and the wider community. “For decades, Michael Tierney, could be seen walking the streets of Ennis, delivering newspapers on his daily round or standing outside the Cathedral on Sunday mornings after mass. He was recognised by his hats, his choice of jewellery, or the smell of perfume as he walked by. He wore make-up and had a large collection of wigs – some blonde with pigtails and others jet black like Elvis’. Michael was an individual in an age of conformity,” Brian said of Michael.
I Could Have Danced All Night featured an assortment of characters that knew Michael and recalled his joie de vivre. These included Grammy-winning singer Maura O’Connell, writer and actor Mark O’Halloran and members of his family and friends. In the documentary, Brian took a walk around Ennis and called to the shop owners on Michael’s newspaper route, spoke with jewellers who supplied him with earrings and heard from neighbours and friends, who recounted his extraordinary life lived to the full. They remembered the mystery tours that Michael took many people on, his affinity with the elderly and lonely and how he handled abuse thrown at him with humour and indifference.
While the documentary focused on the character Michael Tierney, Brian said that at another level, it emphasised the changes in Ennis in the past 40 years. “Ennis used to be a town of independent grocers, newsagents, drapery stores and there were families who were synonymous as traders in the town, including the O’Connors, the Guerins, and the Tierneys. The town is still quite vibrant but it has changed and the documentary captured some of those changes,” he says.
The documentary also discovered that while there are people with wonderful personalities in Ennis these days, that there is no one who would be anything like the character, Michael Tierney.
In compiling the documentary, Brian listened and edited about 30 hours of recording, down to the broadcasted version of the programme but he has kept all of the recordings and may well use them again.
Brian said he is thrilled that this local story has gained this recognition and acknowledgement and been shortlisted for a Celtic Media Award.
Head of RTÉ Radio One documentaries, Liam O’Brien commented, “It would be safe to say that the documentary was amongst our most popular documentaries of the last year. It probably had a reach of something over 100,000 listeners. I believe the reason why the documentary was so popular was down to the quality of the story and the character of Michael himself. For sure, the documentary was a very polished production but Michael’s story was a glimpse into the past of Ennis, of such a different time in Ireland when it’s clear society espoused different values – yet through all of this, Michael was largely accepted for who he was – as to whether that would be the case today, one would have to wonder and so that window into Ennis’/Ireland’s past and all that went with it was certainly one of the factors that led to the popularity of the documentary.”
The award ceremony takes place in the Western Isles in Scotland in mid-April. For more information on the awards and other radio and television programmes and presenters shortlisted for the awards, see www.celticmediafestival.co.uk.