A tribute to Marian Finucane

With Marian Finucane, what you heard was what we got. She was enthusiastic, ironic, curious, intelligent, often amused, and, most of all, passionate.

When I knew her first, towards the tail-end of the 1970s, Marian arrived into RTÉ every morning, in a cloudburst of eagerness and energy. It was no coincidence that, from the beginning, Marian wanted to tie the first programme we worked on together, Women Today, to the radical transforming agenda of the Women’s Movement.

She gave voice to the quiet hunger for change that was there in Irish society. What started as a whisper became a roar over the seven years that Women Today was on air. Marian’s empathy, in getting women to open up, was key to all of that.

RADICAL AGENDA

I produced the first edition of Women Today, a debate on whether women should continue to work outside the home after marriage. It featured Sylvia Meehan, a key figure in the movement for economic equality, and a fairly Neanderthal doctor, Cyril Daly, who I knew from my days in the Irish Medical Times. Sylvia made mincemeat of him, in her unassuming way, and the phones started ringing. They never stopped after that.

It may seem like a tame subject now – but this was May 1979. Only two weeks earlier, on my first day to studio-direct a programme, the sound operator had announced that he didn’t “believe in lady producers.” That’s what we had to contend with.

The Women Today team had at its radical core, myself and Hilary Orpen, both founder members of the Women’s Movement, and Patrick Farrelly, who came up with the title, Women Today. Marian was always eager to try things, to push the boat out. And her gentleness of manner, and genuine kindness, allowed her to roll out a radical agenda, without any sense of threat.

Over the following years, we covered all of the big issues: contraception, divorce, equal pay, abortion, lesbian rights, crèches. And we raised the ire of the bishops and the Knights of Columbanus on a weekly basis. Researching my book, Inside RTÉ, I discovered regular complaints to the RTE Authority, and senior management. At one stage, our Department Head had to concede that a priest, who happened to be a producer in the Department, would attend our meetings, with the aim of reining us in!

ABORTION DOCUMENTARY

It didn’t work. We did two programmes on women’s sexual problems, which demonstrated the deep unhappiness in many Irish marriages. A segment on adoption expanded to three programmes, as the traumas tumbled out, of adoptees and mothers forced into adoption. It was the first exposure of the trauma of the Magdalene laundries. Lesbian mothers told of being attacked on the streets with their little ones. And women in golf clubs told of being excluded from the clubhouse and being restricted to playing on a Tuesday!

And Marian showed her unique gift: she used the intimacy of radio to get the stories from “ordinary” women. The untrained voices of city and country began to talk to one another, and to Marian, who they came to regard as a friend.

To me, she was a real friend. She advised me about buying my first house, about boyfriend troubles, about cat illnesses, and easy cooking. We laughed a lot. And when I was in trouble with management, Marian was there, to assertively back me up. She did not hide from controversy: she was afraid of no one.

This was exemplified in 1980, when she travelled to England, accompanying a woman who was having an abortion. Marian expressed no judgement, instead encouraging the woman to speak her own thoughts. “My feet are cold,” were her first words, when she woke from the termination. The poignant truth of that documentary earned Marian the Prix Italia, the major international documentary award.

I was in her house for dinner the night the result came through. We’d had some wine, and chatted about what we were doing next. The phone rang late. I’m not answering that, said Marian. A voice came through. “Marian, it’s the Director General, to let you know you’ve won the Prix Italia.” Marian dived across the table and lifted the phone!

DANCING AND SINGING

In 1986, Women Today was replaced by Liveline, with Marian in the presenter role. Her skill in getting people to tell their stories made this, too, a ground-breaking programme. I produced Marian on Liveline, and we continued with our daily lunches in the radio canteen, which were themselves like a consciousness-raising session from the playbook of the Women’s Movement. We shared stories and problems, and helped each other towards solutions. We were all close.

At the end of the 1980s, Marian had to face the worst trauma of all. Her beloved daughter Sinead was diagnosed with leukaemia and died in 1990. Marian had a stoic determination to keep working during Sinead’s illness. But she couldn’t face the sympathy of the office, so she’d come in, and go straight to studio. And prepare there with steely determination, to get through her hour on air. I asked her how she could do it. “It helps me, to hear people’s lives and stories,” she said. “For that time, I’m released from my own trauma”.

Many years later, in 2004, when I had moved to television, we revisited that time, when Marian spoke for the first time about the loss of Sinead. The interview was for a documentary I produced, about Marian’s work with AIDS orphans in the townships of South Africa. She and her partner John founded a charity, Friends in Ireland, to build hospices for parents and children suffering and dying with HIV in those terrible years.

Marian and John had received great support from the Irish Hospice movement as they nursed Sinead at home, in her last weeks. They were determined that similar comfort would be there for the poorest people in South Africa. Marian dried away the tears as she spoke to the weakened patients in the hospice. And celebrated – in South African style, with dancing and singing – the importance of hope.

Marian Finucane used all her talents to bring change to the lives of people she encountered along the way. Her passion and skill will be sorely missed.

The documentary, Marian’s Journey, will be re-broadcast on RTÉ 1, at 11.10 pm on January 28.