A Monaghan man recalls the cultural impact of television he observed while installing and repairing TV sets in Irish homes.
'Saturday Live' guest presenter is Bernard Loughlin, director of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig, County Monaghan. He introduces Sean McQuillan, who as well as being a television repair man, has also built his own water wheel and set up one of the country’s first land-based pirate radio stations.
Sean McQuillan lives in Racaulfield, Clones in County Monaghan. As a television repair man he has many tales to tell, and likens his work to that of a missionary travelling around three or four parishes.
Sean McQuillan has no doubt the arrival of television started a cultural revolution. It did away with card playing, draughts, skittles and all sorts of communal games that people used to play,
I know houses where when the telly breaks down it could almost cause a divorce.
Sean McQuillan recalls a time in the 1960s when visiting a Mrs Murphy for a television service call. This woman was convinced her television was a spy keeping the set covered with a thick white cloth during the daytime.
Before setting to work on her television, Sean McQuillan asked Mrs Murphy if it had been left on for a long time. He was told this would never happen as,
That Charles Mitchel fella you know he would be looking out into my kitchen and I have to have it nice and tidy before I switch it on.
Sean McQuillan feels fortunate to have lived through the period post rural electrification when it was possible to have television, but people also listened to pirate radio stations and the BBC Light Programme radio station on the wireless. Before 1962, people in Ireland only had access to British television channels,
It caused a small revolution in that way that people got very far advanced on current affairs in the UK.
This episode of ‘Saturday Live’ was broadcast on 20 February 1988. The presenter is Bernard Loughlin.
‘Saturday Live’ was a weekly chat show with a different guest host each week.
