Language Bites

‘Language Bites’ is a series of 1 minute programmes exploring the origins of popular phrases in the English language. It is presented by Colette Kinsella and funded through the Broadcasting Authority of Irelands Sound and Vision scheme. It can be heard weekdays on RTE Choice at 09.57 and again at 14.57.

Listen to series here

Download the podcasts here

Follow us on Facebook here

Recipes From the Lost and Found

Mondays, 7.45 a.m. and repeated later that day at 1.45 p.m.

Download the podcasts here

Clare Cronin finds forgotten recipes for food and medicine. As is often the case, the keepers of the forgotten secrets are, themselves, as interesting as the recipes. Programmes feature elderflower, Meadow Sweet, Fraughans (wild blueberries) and Razor Clams.

Recipes from the Lost and Found is funded through the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland Sound and Vision scheme.

Episode 1: Razor Clams – Tilly’s Ringsend Razors
Monday 11th June at 7.45am and 1.45pm.

Expert Fisherman and Coastwatch Ireland member, Dave Tilly, is both expert guide and chef on Dublin Bay as we collect and cook razor clams. There is a knack to coaxing the clam from its deep sandy burrow and Dave talks us through it, step by step. The final step is whipping the promus stove from his car and cooking up Tilly’s Ringsend Razors on the seafront. You can read Dave’s blog and learn a lot about the sea here

Episode 2: Elderflower Champagne
Monday 18th June at 7.45am and 1.45pm.

Producer Clare Cronin brews some powerful Elderflower champagne, which threatens to blow the roof off Tony Adam’s cottage at Tiraveen, Co. Cork. Tony lives self-sufficiently there on a highly productive acre, which includes an elder tree. Among other things, he is an expert wine maker and shows just how easy it is to make a sparkling elderflower presse or champagne. This non-alcoholic drink should be left for just a few weeks, after that it builds up more than a gentle pop……but we find even Clare’s champagne can be detonated and enjoyed after a few months brewing.

Episode 3: Wild Herb Smoothie
Monday 25th June at 7.45am and 1.45pm.

Jorg Muller is fully qualified, practicing Medical Herbalist and master tea blender. He says that in ten minutes he can find wild herbs to replace all the calcium and mineral supplements many people take. He makes good on that claim on an unpromising urban landscape on the outskirts of Galway city. Jorg is a native of Germany, and there he was one of the first professional food foragers for the wild ingredients that have now become so trendy in food. There are taste revelations, like wild celery and of course the smoothie. Find out more about Jorg here

Episode 4: Seaweed - Dillisk Crisps
Monday 2nd July at 7.45am and 1.45pm.

On the Sligo coast tradition had it that one dangerous sea rock, and the dillisk that grows on it, held the cure to life threatening worms. In this programme the country’s leading seaweed expert, Dr. Prannie Rhatigan (above) confirms this is no piseog or superstition. We recreate the dash to the Worm rock, harvest some dillisk, take it back to Prannie’s kitchen and make some dillisk crisps, a big favourite of ten-year-old Kate Waters. Find out more about Prannie at www.prannie.com. Download a guide to seaweeds and seaweed harvest at the Heritage Council’s here.

Episode 5: Meadowsweet Salve
Monday 9th July at 7.45am and 1.45pm.

A recipe, but not for eating this time as medical herbalist Christine McQuillan (above) shows us how to harvest meadowsweet and make a salve to sooth joint aches and pains. We’re in the heart of Dublin for these recordings, which take us Islandbridge and to Trinity College’s Physic Garden to get a fully rounded view of current thinking on the value of medicinal plants. For more information go to www.herbalclinic.ie.

Episode 6: Bloody Good Black Pudding On Toast
Monday 16th July at 7.45am and 1.45pm.

Traditional black pudding or putog is a recipe so truly lost to us that when it is made the old fashioned, bloody way, it can no longer be sold to Irish consumers. Master butcher Sean Kelly (above) takes us through the process at the back of his butcher’s shop in Newport, Co. Mayo. Sean is internationally acclaimed for his black pudding. He finds it hard to understand why EU law allows these old fashioned recipes to be used on the continent, but not here in Ireland. Sean shares his favourite black pudding recipe with us, and you can find more at www.kellysbutchers.com/recipes.html .

Episode 7: Ard Erin Fraughans, on our own Blueberry Hill
Monday 23rd July at 7.45am and 1.45pm.

A tradition stretching back to the Celtic past is recreated for this programme, which features a hike to the top of Ard Erin, Co. Laois, for Fraughan Sunday which was part of Lunasa celebrations. The man guiding us, Mick Dowling (above), is old enough to remember thousands gathering to celebrate, and fit enough to set a cracking pace. In fact he can climb and comment on all we pass through on our way to the highest point in the midlands.

Episode 8: Wicklow’s Forest Fungi
Monday 30th July at 7.45am and 1.45pm.

A stroll in the autumnal Wicklow woods starts out with one mycologist (mushroom expert), and we bump into another giving us two out of 12 members of the Irish Mycological Society to guide us on a fun forage. Louis Smith is co- author of the guide to Irish forest fungi, and his fellow Chef Pat McClarnan joins in the hunt for the highly prized Cep or Porcini. The mushrooms end up in the kitchen of Manifesto restaurant in Rathmines being given the Italian treatment by chef/owner Lucio Pedruto.

Download the podcasts here

Future Tense (Radio Australia)

Fridays, 4.30pm
Saturdays, 8.30am

New ideas, new approaches, new technologies… Future Tense explores the social, cultural, political and economic faultlines arising from rapid change. The weekly half-hour program/podcast takes a critical look at new technologies, new approaches and new ways of thinking. From politics to social media to urban agriculture, nothing is outside our brief.

Antony Funnell is a Walkley award-winning journalist and broadcaster. He has been the presenter of Future Tense since 2009. Prior to that, he fronted Media Report on ABC Radio National.

Further details on Future Tense and access to the podcast archive is available here

Made in Ireland

‘Made in Ireland’ is an Athena Media production, presented by Ella McSweeney and funded through the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland Sound and Vision scheme.

What are the crafts and skills that say something about our culture, our heritage and our sense of being Irish? What stories do the people who practiced these skills have to tell, and how have these skills and traditions been passed on to new generations of Irish people?

Made in Ireland is a 13 part radio series, presented by Ella McSweeney, which tells the stories of what we used to make in this country, and how such traditions and skills are continuing today. It's the story of Ireland's manufacturing past, present and future. Made in Ireland runs as a re-edited stand-alone series on RTÉ Choice RTÉ Digital Radio, from Jan 4th 2012. The 13 part series which is presented by Ella McSweeney and which has run as a feature drop in series in Today with Pat Kenny will have a new life on RTÉ Choice starting Wednesday Jan 4th 3.15pm and then again on Saturdays at noon.

Ella hears the stories of people who are keeping these skills alive in Ireland - the young and the old, the Irish and the non-Irish, the rural dwellers and the city. From working with leather to making charcoal; using 100% Irish wool to stained glass artistry - there are people throughout the land who are using their hands to create things that are unique, special and intrinsically Irish.

Each programme will feature one skill, and listeners will hear from people around the country who are practicing techniques from the past, so that they will have a future. Made in Ireland is about enterprise, skill and people who work with their hands. The series reflects how our traditions define us.

Made in Ireland presented by Ella McSweeney on RTÉ Choice Wednesdays at 6pm.

The series is an Athena Media production for RTÉ Radio

Further details on the project and the radio producers is available at www.athenamedia.ie

Or check out our Facebook page

Download the podcasts here

Amazing Graces

'Amazing Graces' - an original series on women in history.

Women who have made a difference, women who were not afraid to be counted but who have somehow been forgotten in time. 

Written and produced by Breege Brennan.

(Click on the photos to stream or download)

Pillars of Society

with Sandra Andrea O’Connell (editor, “Architecture Ireland” magazine.)

Produced by Monica Harkin

(Made in association with The Irish Architecture Foundation and Open House, Dublin)

They're Not All Gone...

Paula Carroll's series on three characters of the Co. Clare traditional music scene.

Made with the assistance of the Sound & Vision Fund of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland

Click here to download the MP3s:

Mary Ellen Curtin
Tommy Browne
Des Mulkere


Or click on the photos...

RTÉ Choice offers you a mix of Irish and international programming in a new and exciting format.  RTÉ’s arts, features and dramas are combined with up to the minute reporting from news services around the world, comedy, arts and documentaries to bring you a world of radio in one service.

RTÉ Choice takes the best of RTÉ’s night time programmes and schedules them throughout the day along with a selection of programmes from RTÉ’s rich radio archives.  RTÉ Choice includes broadcasts from the BBC World Service, America’s National Public Radio (NPR) network, Deutsche Welle, Radio Netherlands and Radio France International.

Facebook: bit.ly/RTEChoice
Twitter: twitter.com/RTEChoice

Every weekday, during the Dublin Fringe Festival 2010,
in a shop in Temple Bar, Dublin, an artist worked with an
RTE Radio producer making a piece of radio for broadcast
that evening on RTE Choice.

Read all about it here

(Presented by Lian Bell. Produced by Ronan Kelly.
Executive Producer, David McKenna
Project Coordinator for DFF: Kate O'Sullivan )

RTÉ Choice Win Gold at the PPI Awards

RTÉ Choice took home the award for Best Documentary Feature at the 2009 PPI Awards.

Colette Kinsella (left) was the recipient of the Gold PPI award for her RTE Choice documentary, 'Through Cairo Airport'

A Prairie Home Companion, National Public Radio (U.S.)

Saturdays, 6pm
Sundays, 10am

A Prairie Home Companion has been on the go for more than 30 years. Featuring Garrison Keillor and broadcast live in the Fitzgerald Theatre in St. Paul, A Prairie Home Companion presents comedy sketches, music, and Garrison's signature monologue, "The News from Lake Wobegon."

There has been plenty of adventure in the past 30-plus years — broadcasts from Canada, Ireland, Scotland, England, Germany, Iceland and almost every one of the 50 states; wonderful performers, little-known and world-renowned; standing ovations and stares of bewilderment. We've missed planes, coped with lost luggage, dodged swooping bats and hungry mosquitoes, plodded through blizzards, and flown by the seat of our pants.

Today, A Prairie Home Companion is heard by more than 4 million listeners each week on

Girl Talk with Evelyn O'Rourke

From Alan Sugar's Apprentice to Dublin's Fair City: Loose Women came to RTÉ Radio.

BBC Apprentice star Jennifer Maguire, Clelia Murphy from Ireland's official top-rating soap Fair City, RTÉ Television presenter Geri Maye and 2FM reporter Evelyn O'Rourke went on a girls' day out in Dublin to mark the launch of Girl Talk. The brand-new digital radio series which was broadcast on RTÉ's digital station RTÉ Choice at the end of 2009.

Every week presenter Evelyn O'Rourke invited a squad of sharp-shooting female guests into studio.

Download the podcasts here

Car Talk, National Public Radio (U.S.)              
                               
Wednesdays, 8am
Saturdays, 9am

Car Talk puts you behind the wheel of America’s best known radio show dedicated to cars and their owners. A fun-loving pick me up with all sorts of car related banter, facts and figures, stories and quizzes, music and phone-ins. Even if you don’t like cars, you’ll love Car Talk

It started as a segment on another NPR show, but nine months later in Autumn 1987 they launched Car Talk. According to hosts Tom and Ray Magliozzi:

“We, like you, remain entirely mystified and have no idea what combination of prescription medicines brought about a decision like this out of NPR's management. We can only assume that they were looking for some

cultural diversity, trying somehow to balance their high quality programming with crud like ours. Stations turned to us in droves — much in the same way that lemmings flock to the sea.”

Brought to you by RTÉ Choice

Documentary, BBC World Service

Wednesdays, 9am

A range of BBC World Service’s high impact documentary series, dealing with important and arresting global issues. With cutting-edge reportage, it’s compelling listening for all world citizens.

World Briefing, BBC World Service

Monday to Friday, 5pm

An hour of BBC World Service news reports, comment and interviews with politicians and opinion formers from around the world.

www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/

I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, BBC International

Mondays, 9am

First broadcast in 1972, this hugely popular BBC panel game regularly features high-calibre comedians such as Stephen Fry, Sandy Toksvig, Paul Merton and Jeremy Hardy. Presented by the late, great Humphrey Lyttelton with Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor, and Barry Cryer and Colin Sell is at the piano.

Morning Edition

Monday to Friday, 12pm
Weekends, 12pm

Morning Edition airs Monday through Friday on more than 600 NPR stations across the United States, and around the globe. For more than two decades, NPR's Morning Edition has prepared U.S. listeners for the day ahead with two hours of up-to-the-minute news, background analysis, commentary, and coverage of arts and sports.

Morning Edition’s cast of regulars includes correspondents Susan Stamberg, Juan Williams; commentator Frank Deford; news analyst Cokie Roberts; and newscasters Jean Cochran and Carl Kasell. The programme is hosted by NPR's Steve Inskeep and NPR's Renee Montagne

Produced by NPR in Washington, D.C.

The Strand, BBC World Service     
  
Monday – Friday 3.30pm

The Strand gives listeners a truly global guide to the world of arts, culture and entertainment. Through the week Harriett Gilbert and Mark Coles bring you news of the best films, books, music, theatre, art and design - as well as live studio performances, celebrity guests and reviews.