Opinion

Radio review: Stories of heartbreak, love and loss – 2024 in radio

Desert Island Discs, Last Word and RTÉ‘s Sunday Miscellany were among the highlights of the year

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann is an Irish News columnist and writes a weekly radio review.

Jamie Dornan grateful to father who insisted mother’s death wouldn’t define him (Amanda Benson/ BBC)
Jamie Dornan was among guests on Desert Island Discs this year

As the old year nods by the fire, perhaps it’s time to gaze into the embers and remember the best of the radio in the past year.

Guilty Milord, of a passion for Desert Island Discs. I particularly remember Professor Alice Roberts, Cillian Murphy and local actor made good, Jamie Dornan.

The latter was both funny, self-deprecating and incredibly open about his late dad, the obstetrician and gynaecologist Jim Dornan – a legend in his own right in Northern Ireland.

He delivered about 6,000 babies during his career and Jamie says people often come up to him at home and he’s thinking that they are going to talk to him about a film that he’s worked on or whatever.

But invariably they say something like: “Your dad delivered me and my sister, and my mum always talked about how much she fancied your dad.” Hearing the stories is “a huge comfort”, he said.

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There’s a beautiful romantic story about a set of swimming pool steps, and a poignant moment when Jamie Dornan talks about how, when he was still very young, his dad broke the news that his mother was not going to recover from her cancer and that she would die.

Jamie Dornan interview
Jamie Dornan, right, with his sister Jessica Dornan Lynas and father Jim Dornan during an event by pancreatic cancer charity NIPanC's at the Mater Hospital in Belfast

Heartbreak and love – I also found myself turning more and more to Last Word on Radio 4, perhaps because those who are leaving this world are not that much older than me.

I knew some of them and find myself drawn to individual stories – just like Lives Remembered on these pages.

I have a true grá for Sunday Miscellany on RTÉ because the writing is so good.

You can catch the Christmas special now – it was recorded in the National Concert Hall with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and it is a true Irish Christmas.

Closer to home, Assume Nothing is a brilliant series that has gone from strength to strength. I was gripped by A Belfast Haunting – a not so very old ghost story that became the talk of west Belfast.



More recently, I’m hearing great recommendations about Murder at the Stables and the series first came to my attention with The Last Request from BBC journalists Laura McDaid and Kerrie Jamison.

It’s a poignant story of a life cut tragically short and Laura’s unfaltering mission to fulfil her friend’s last request, 20 years after his death.

And there’s more… so much more on the radio. So prick up your ears.

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