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Irish Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Housewife of the Year review: A reminder that Ireland of the 1970s and 80s was no country for women of any age
If the 'Lovely Girls' episode of Father Ted was a horror movie, it might have looked something like Housewife of the Year (RTÉ One, Monday, 9.30pm). Ciaran Cassidy's documentary about the only-in-Ireland 'best mammy' contest, hosted each year by Gay Byrne through the 1980s and early 1990s, depicts the event as a glorified pageant for homemakers and a sort of Handmaid's Tale-type ritual that left women in little doubt where they stood in post-DeValera Ireland. Young, old, in-between – the film is a reminder that Ireland was no country for women of any age, and Housewife of the Year let them know it. Cassidy gets the tone exactly right, capturing the low-wattage despair that was part of the background radiation of early 1980s Ireland. When telling the story, there was surely a temptation to serve up a Reeling in the Years type nostalgia-fest – to portray Housewife of the Year as toe-curling and harmless cultural bric-a-brac, to be filed alongside Bosco and Live at Three. The director takes a different tack by interviewing a number of women who participated in this grim jamboree and who are today largely astonished by their naivety. The contrast between the picture they were required to present while on a podium next to 'Uncle Gaybo' – as he refers to himself – and their present-day selves is striking. Ann McStay talks about having had 13 children by the age of 31 and of having to take a bus to what was, in effect, a soup kitchen to feed her family while her husband sought refuge at the bottom of a glass. 'The more kids I had, the more he receded into the pub,' she says. 'He was probably a bit bamboozled'. She entered Housewife of the Year for the prize money and, emboldened by her victory, later spoke out against Ireland's medieval contraception laws. 'After I won, that gave me a bit of courage. You had to be very careful but you have to say it as it is.' READ MORE Just as striking is the story of Ena Howell, whose unmarried mother gave birth to her at the notorious Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in Cork; at the Housewife of the Year, her adoptive mother and her family were gathered on one side of the aisle while on the other her birth mother sat alone. Having reached out to her mother, Ena, we are told her half-siblings demanded she cut off contact. 'They couldn't accept that their perfect family wasn't perfect any more.' Housewife of the Year has many such stories – one woman describes being packed off to a Magdalene Laundry after a pharmacist passes on photographs of her innocently mucking about with some male friends to the parish priest. Another recalls how she became pregnant before marrying her husband and worrying this might be exposed during the contest. 'It was scary. There was still a stigma to it,' she says. 'I didn't want my eldest child to have to suffer anything.' But Cassidy also acknowledges not every mother in 1980s Ireland considered their life a patriarchal hellscape. 'I loved being a housewife,' says Patricia Connolly. 'It never entered my head to go out to work. I didn't have to. Your life revolved around your husband and children.' Gay Byrne doesn't cover himself in glory. As in his interviews on The Late Late Show with Sinéad O'Connor, he comes across as patronising and high on his own smarm. When one contestant reveals she is pregnant, he puts a hand on her waist and cradles his head against her baby bump. There is nothing licentious about the gesture – he isn't being a creep – but nor is he respectful of her personal space. Documentaries about Ireland under the Church are often defined by a sense of barely contained anger. Cassidy's film is in a different register: it radiates a deep sadness as it bears witness to generations of women for whom Ireland was a place of narrowed horizons and stifled opportunities. 'It's like a dreamworld – people accepted all these things,' says one contributor, sounding like someone stirring from a nightmare. Housewife of the Year can also be streamed on Apple TV+
Irish Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
TV guide: Housewife of the Year, Ginny & Georgia and the other best things to watch this week
Pick of the Week Housewife of the Year Monday, RTÉ One, 9.30pm If Donald Trump were president of Ireland, the first thing he would do would be to reinstate this ancient housekeeping pageant, where Irish women competed to be the best at cooking, cleaning, ironing and fixing their husbands a nice cocktail after his hard day at the office. This documentary opens the cupboards on recent Irish history, when the competition was as hotly contested as a Miss Ireland or Rose of Tralee. Housewife of the Year started in 1965, just when young women around the world were starting to break loose from the pinafores and aprons, and was televised on RTÉ from 1982 until it was finally put out to pasture in 1995. As part of the competition, contestants were filmed at home doing the housework and generally keeping the show on the road, so this documentary features insightful footage of Irish mammies in their natural habitat – even David Attenborough would raise an eyebrow at these arcane domestic rituals. It also features interviews with former contestants, who recall an age when contraception didn't exist, many jobs had a marriage bar, and scrimping and saving to pay for household basics was the norm (still is). And of course there are lots of surreal moments from the event itself, broadcast in front of live audience with Gay Byrne presenting. The film by Little Wing won Best Irish Feature Documentary at last year's Galway Film Fleadh, where it made its debut. Highlights My Epic Camel Adventure with Gordon Buchanan Sunday, RTÉ2, 6.30pm My Epic Camel Adventure with Gordon Buchanan. Photograph: Jack Warrender/Hello Halo productions/BBC Lights, camel, action!* In this wildlife special, aired on the BBC in March, adventurer Gordon Buchanan sets off across the Gobi Desert with only his trusty camels to get him across this treacherous terrain. He will travel over searingly hot sand dunes and perilous, rocky plains – not to mention the daunting Bumbat mountain – and he'll have to develop a close, trusting relationship with his camels if he's going to survive the journey. He'll learn all about these remarkable animals, and how they have evolved to survive in a hostile desert environment, and he'll encounter other denizens of the desert along the way, including wolves, saiga antelopes, yaks and the elusive Gobi bear. (*With apologies to 1980s Anglo-Cork band Stump and their classic tune Charlton Heston.) Our Guy in Vietnam Sunday, Channel 4, 9pm Guy Martin: Our Guy in Vietnam It's been 50 years since the Vietnam war ended, and the country is still dealing with the long legacy of that traumatic conflict. But it's also charging forward into a high-tech future and looking to become an industrial hub of Asia. Guy Martin gets on his motorbike and heads down the iconic Ho Chi Minh Trail to explore the history of the Vietnam war and learn how the country is moving on. In the first of this two-part documentary, Martin stops off at a former US combat base housing a Huey helicopter graveyard. Aistear an Amhráin Tuesday, RTÉ One, 7pm Aistear an Amhráin: Grace Gifford Have you ever heard a song on the radio, in a pub, or on a film soundtrack and wondered about the story behind it? Aistear an Amhráin is back with another playlist of tunes, from evergreen standards and classic pop anthems to uplifting ballads, and explores the real-life inspirations for the songs. What was the love story that fuelled The Frank and Walters' 1990s hit After All? Who was the Belfast roadie whose murder prompted Spandau Ballet to write Through the Barricades? The first programme looks at a tragic love story that inspired one of Ireland's most enduring songs, Grace. The subject of the song was Grace Gifford, who married her beau Joseph Mary Plunkett in Kilmainham Gaol just hours before he was executed as one of the architects of the Easter Rising. The song has been covered by more than 100 artists, including Jim McCann and Rod Stewart (there's even a version by boxer Kellie Harrington), and reporter Sinéad Ní Churnáin meets one of the song's writers, Seán O'Meara, to get the full story of how the song came about. READ MORE Hardy Bucks Thursday, BBC Two, 10pm Okay, calm down – this is not a brand new series of the classic 2010s comedy set in the west of Ireland, but it is a chance to revisit Eddie, Buzz, Frenchtoast and The Boo as they get up to all their aul' shenanigans in the fictional village of Castletown in Co Mayo. This is series three, made 10 years ago, and in episode one, Eddie realises he needs a woman's touch to keep him from going off the rails altogether, but who would be brave – or foolish enough – to take on the job? Time to get back with his ex, Noreen, but the candlelit dinner he's planned fails to rekindle the passion – in fact, it's a complete disaster. The British Soap Awards 2025 Thursday, UTV, 8pm It's time to hand out gongs for the best soaps on the telly, and this year the E's have it, as both EastEnders and Emmerdale are leading the list of nominations with 13 each, including for best leading performer, while Coronation Street and Hollyoaks are trailing behind with 11 nominations each. Jane McDonald returns as host for this year's ceremony, which takes place in front of a live audience at Hackney Empire in London on Saturday. 'You all know I love my soaps, so to be in a room giving recognition to all these wonderful actors and their fantastic hard work is simply joyous,' says McDonald. Streaming Stick From Wednesday, June 4th, Apple TV+ Stick: Owen Wilson What do washed-up sports stars do when they've reached the end of the road and are looking for a pathway to redemption? Easy: they just stumble on a young prodigy, preferably from a dysfunctional background and with a few anger issues, and take them under their wing. Pryce Cahill is a former pro golfer – nicknamed Stick – whose career ended 20 years ago, followed soon after by his marriage and his job at a sporting-goods store. With lots of time on his hands and little else in prospect, Pryce encounters Santi, a troubled teenager who happens to be a genius with a golf club. Can Pryce help Santi hit the heights of PGA success that he never reached himself? And does Santi even want success? Owen Wilson stars as Stick in this comedy drama that plays a bit like Hoosiers meets Happy Gilmore. It's from the crowd that brought us Ted Lasso , so nuff said. Ginny & Georgia From Thursday, June 5th, Netflix Ginny & Georgia: Brianne Howey and Antonia Gentry Mother-daughter relationships can be a bit of a trial, but in the third series of this family drama the family faces an actual trial – for murder. Series two ended with Georgia (Brianne Howey), the mom, being arrested on her own wedding day; her daughter, Ginny (Antonia Gentry), faces the dilemma of whether to believe in her mother's innocence or accept the overwhelming evidence against her. What she does know is that she doesn't want her mom to go to prison. Georgia is put under house arrest and made to wear an electronic ankle monitor, while Ginny has to run the gauntlet in the school corridor every day, with the eyes of her classmates burning through her head. Will the Miller family rise to their greatest challenge yet while still delivering some laugh-out-loud moments? You better believe it, peaches.
