User:Daragh McDonagh/sandbox

Career
Frankie Byrne (1922 - 11 December 1993) was an Irish public relations consultant and broadcaster. Earlier in her career, in the late 1940s, Frankie Byrne worked at the Brazilian embassy in Dublin Frankie Byrne was a pioneer when it comes to Irish radio and it was with her the “Agony Aunt”(1)(2) that the notion of the radio as a public confessional started(1)(2). This style of radio as presented on her show Dear Frankie sponsored by Jacobs(1) paved the way for the present day shows such as The Gerry Ryan Show and RTE’s Liveline with Joe Duffy(1). When Frankie Byrne started, Ireland was so locked into pretending that it could cope, that people felt ashamed to admit to things being less than fine. A front had to be put up about personal struggles such as mental illness, alcoholism, or instability in a family and much more. Prior to Dear Frankie, these problems were to be hidden away at all costs. A stigma surrounded Ireland at the time stopping people from asking for help, asking for help was seen as a weakness that should never be shown.

Dear Frankie was broadcasted from 1963 to 1985(1)(2). Dear Frankie opened with the words, ‘Welcome to Woman’s Page, a programme for and about you’(1)(2)' The programme started out as a 15-minute question and answer format(1)(2)' on household issues but soon it was soon to become a compelling radio programme for people everywhere to discuss their deepest and darkest secrets while searching for an answer, this continued for over twenty years(1)(2). Listeners sat all over Ireland pausing in silence, as people would send in letters sharing their problems with the listeners ranging from jealous husband to lovelorn teenagers. In many interviews, Frankie claimed she knew nothing about domestic science but that she did know about love(1). Frankie solved the relationship problems of a nation while living a life of turmoil in her own life with ups and downs throughout her rise to fame. Frankie became a household name in Ireland as the woman with the distinctive, husky voice, who found solutions to problems in a witty yet warm way. Frankie was in some way held censored by the RTE guidelines(2) at that time but the most unique feature of Dear Frankie was that it was the first of its kind on radio to set people talking, and it helped begin a national conversation on the lonely struggles of generations of Irish women that had never really been openly spoken about before. It gradually transformed itself from a household tips format to a much deeper intimate programme on relationships. Letters were sent in on a daily, from all over Ireland with the hope that Frankie would be able to find a solution to your problem. The letters received by Frankie portrayed a different picture of Ireland to what people were used to hearing, a real picture some said.

In-text: (Doyle-O'Neill, 2013) (1)

Doyle-O'Neill, F. (2013). Life on-air: talk radio and popular culture in Ireland. Retrieved from https://cora.ucc.ie/bitstream/handle/10468/2855/RADIO_AND_popular_CULTURE.pdf?sequence=5

In-text: (Doyle-O’Neil, 2018)(2)

Doyle-O’Neil, F. (2018). Tuned out? A Study of RTÉ radio 1 programmes Dear Frankie/Women Today and BBC 4’s Woman’s Hour. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13688804.2018.1477582

In-text: (Hannon, 2018) (3)

Hannon, P. (2018). Tuning In: Key Audience Issues for Public Service Broadcaster, RTE Radio 1 (1995-2012). Retrieved from https://arrow.dit.ie/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1042&context=appamas