A profile of newspaper columnist Angela MacNamara, Ireland's first agony aunt.
Angela MacNamara was Ireland's most popular agony aunt in the 1970s. As well as looking to solve the country's emotional problems, Angela also travelled the country giving talks to parents and schoolchildren. In this excerpt from the Radharc programme profiling Angela and her work, she comments:
I don't write for the purpose of pleasing a general audience, while at the same time I do keep them in mind.
The programme shows Angela at work in her home, where she speaks about the people that write to her and the problems they face.
Fr. Dermod McCarthy commented in the RTÉ Guide (25 APril 1975) about Angela and the Radharc programme.
To some she is a sentimental do-gooder, a 'Holly Mary', a moraliser who provides sentimental platitudes to lovesick teenage girls. But to very many other she is a beacon of light in a very confused world - the one person to whom they can turn for help in their very real difficulties. Whatever your view, she is part of the landscape. You may like or dislike her, but you cannot ignore her.
Angela MacNamara had a weekly column in the Sunday Press. She started out giving school talks about marriage and relationships in the 1960s. In 1963 she wrote a short series of articles about this work for the Sunday Press and the enquiries arising out of them brought about her well-known column in that newspaper. She was receiving and answering about four thousand letters a year.
'Radharc: Dear Angela' was first broadcast on 27 April 1975.
