Even dependable, phlegmatic Claire Byrne is alarmed by ‘adolescent brain'

Irish Times

16-05-2025

The kids are all right? Whatever the case when The Who originally made the claim, in the swinging London of 1965, it seems a dubious assertion in Ireland 60 years later. 'Irish teenagers are succeeding in school but struggling in life,' the reporter Kate Carolan baldly declares on
Morning Ireland
(
RTÉ Radio 1
, weekdays), summing up the findings of a Unicef report that teens here are among the
least happy
in high-income countries.
The news that one in three 15-year-olds here has 'low life satisfaction' may add to the worries of those parents in the audience already struggling to get recalcitrant offspring out to school, but it probably won't come as a shock to anyone tuning into the week's radio.
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Certainly, Wednesday's edition of Morning Ireland has its share of dispiriting stories about the young. Covering a clinical audit investigating whether children underwent unnecessary hip surgery, the presenter Justin McCarthy talks to Áine Gladney Knox, whose son Archie had such an operation three years ago. 'He just screamed and screamed,' she recalls, anguished at the possibility that the 'absolute hell' her son endured after the procedure could have been avoided.
The awful emotional impacts aside, the item is perhaps somewhat tendentious: Gladney Knox, a
Sinn Féin
member, doesn't know if the surgery was required or not, as the
inquiry
into the burgeoning scandal is ongoing. But it feeds into a wider atmosphere of anxiety about the wellbeing of children.
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Colman O'Sullivan's report on pupils in
Harold's Cross
in
Dublin
wearing cameras for a pilot project on safe school journeys is an ostensibly encouraging story, but it's hardly designed to set youthful minds at rest, particularly as one girl describes seeing a van break a red light outside the school that very day. And this is just one programme.
The mood isn't much more uplifting on
Today with Claire Byrne
(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), where the host sets about removing the sheen from one of the few plus points
in the Unicef survey
, the high educational achievements of Irish teenagers. On Wednesday Byrne talks to her regular contributors Dr Harry Barry and Dr Ann-Marie Creaven about the mental-health challenges faced by new students arriving at college.
'It's this really tricky period of transition between childhood and adulthood,' says Byrne; this is exacerbated by what Barry describes as 'adolescent brain'. He reels off a succession of statistics pointing to high levels of depression and stress among young students in recent years: 'This was a tsunami coming our way, and we've put our head in the sand,' he says, summing up the cheery thrust of the discussion.
In the doctors' defence, they lay out their glum assessment in clear terms, from 'environmental stressors' such as the demands of commuting and the cost of living.
But there are less tangible factors too. 'A lot of these kids are very lonely,' says Barry, who notes that online connections can't compensate for a lack of family or friends, before voicing the anxious mantra of so many conversations on the effects of social media: 'We have to take kids away from phones.' As a kicker, Barry observes that many students are turning to casual drug use to overcome the stress of the situation.
It gets to the stage where even the dependably phlegmatic Byrne is sufficiently alarmed to point out that many people actually enjoy college. 'We don't want to frighten anybody,' she says, though the time for reassurance has by now long passed: she may as well be wearing a ski mask and wielding a chainsaw as she delivers her supposedly calming caveat.
Creaven, more helpfully, suggests that new students should limit their expectations of slotting straight into campus life: 'Meaningful connections take a little bit of time to build.' It's a simple but important piece of advice, bringing a welcome sense of proportion to the topic.
Not to be outdone,
Pat Kenny
(
Newstalk
, weekdays) fills his quota of gloomy early-years items when he speaks to Kate Duggan, chief executive of
Tusla
, the child and family agency. Given the host's methodical mindset, the interview thankfully focuses more on organisational matters, as he quizzes his guest on scarcity of resources and shortages of social workers.
It's not totally technocratic: Kenny refers to some grim individual cases, such as the lack of a care space for a girl threatened by a drug gang, but doesn't dwell on harrowing personal detail. Equally, it's yet another item that frames childhood as a time to be endured rather than enjoyed.
Still, it's a laugh riot compared to Kenny's interview with the
Israeli
ambassador,
Dana Erlich
. The diplomat, who was recalled from her Dublin post last year in protest at Ireland's
pro-Palestinian
stance, has been a staunch defender of
Israel's actions in Gaza
in her previous appearances with Kenny, and she remains unyielding, accusing the Irish media of 'a very one-sided simple narrative to a very complex situation'.
Not that Erlich's counternarrative is particularly nuanced. She determinedly portrays Hamas as wholly responsible for the carnage, whether by holding hostages, allegedly hoarding food supplies or continuing to rule the enclave. The future, she says, involves 'the Palestinian people of
Gaza
being liberated from
Hamas
'. This, presumably, is what the Israel military has been doing, while also freeing the besieged population of their dwellings, food and lives.
Newstalk presenter Pat Kenny. Photograph: Newstalk
Kenny's meticulously factual approach can't dent his guest's metronomic arguments, but it does highlight the disproportionately extreme nature of Israel's actions since the attacks of October 7th, 2023. When Erlich wonders why people aren't marching against Hamas – she describes the militant Islamist group as 'genocidal', with no apparent irony – the host responds in eminently reasonable yet quietly damning terms.
'The criticism is pointed at Israel because of the overwhelming military superiority that you have and that you are using a medieval tactic of limiting food aid as a means of war,' he says, sounding baffled that he needs to point this out. Kenny does well to keep his composure, but it's hard to imagine anyone feeling okay after hearing that.
Moment of the week
As the
Eurovision
party gets under way in Basle,
Oliver Callan
(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) wryly surveys the circus-camp – or camp-circus – atmosphere around the song contest. He's particularly taken with a tabloid description of the Spanish singer Melody, a diva of the smouldering variety, as a big hit among all the men watching. 'Well, not all the men,' says Callan, chuckling, 'just the handful of straight men who were watching.'
Warming to his theme, the host imagines the plight of his moustachioed RTÉ colleague covering the contest. 'In the arena in Basle, sure, Marty Whelan is the only non-gay man in that audience,' Callan, a gay man himself, says before adding, 'Which is why he drinks so much Baileys, I presume, to survive.' Funny, but no douze points: the jury's still out on that last gag.
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