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IF YOU EVER wondered about the power of television, it says something that an actor who starred in a programme aimed at teenagers over 10 years ago is now teaching the offspring of those very teens as part of RTÉ’s Home School Hub.
“Some of the parents in the school where I teach would be my age, and that would have been the generation that would have been watching Aifric,” says Clíona Ní Chiosáin, who spent five years of her teenage life representing the trials and (sometimes trivial) tribulations of a teen in the Irish-language programme.
Clíona played 14-year-old Aifric de Spáinn, a quirky Dublin teenager who moves to Connemara and deals with all the problems a young Irish girl faces in growing up.
It was first aired in 2006 and ran for three seasons, winning three IFTAs in a row for best Children’s/Youth programme, as well as a Celtic Film and Media Festival award in 2009. It’s also been aired in other countries, and translated into Scottish Gaelic, Portuguese and Spanish.
Looking back on the programme now, part of its popularity can be attributed to the everyday topics that were covered: Aifric searched for a group of friends she belonged with, fell for boys, and clashed with her eccentric family members (her little brother Traolach is into ancient Asian philosophies).
“It was a girl trying to figure out who she is and trying to find her way in the world,” Ní Chiosáin says. “[You're trying to] navigate your way through situations with friendships and adversaries, with boys she was interested in, with work experience. It was very sweet really.”
“It had a bit for humour in it as well,” she adds. ”It was slightly dramatic, things would pan out – there was kind of fun element to it.”
In one scene, for example, Aifric’s love interest in Season 2, Leo, finds a girlfriend. Aifric gets upset, and as she tries to walk through a door, a news crew bursts into the scene, and the reporter says:
Paris is burning, London is underwater and Cairo is under a blanket of snow. But first, Aifric de Spáinn suffers from a broken heart.
Nó ‘brón dubh an croíbhrise’, as Gaeilge.
The other thing that made it popular, she says, is that teachers would be encouraging students to watch it.
“It was a nice way of having people [get] used to watching things in Irish. The subjects were so broad and so mainstream in terms of kind of what teenagers would go through, the only thing that made anything different about it was just that it was in Irish.”
The show was written by Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin, co-created and directed by Paul Mercier and funded by the BCI, Bord Scannán na hEireann, and TG4.
Speaking to IFTN in 2008, Mercier said that “the story is coming from the kids and there’s a sense that it’s about them and their world – their point of view, rather than forcing something on them”.
Home School Hub
It’s a fantastic way to reach children… I notice that children relax when they’re watching a video, when they’re interested in what’s going on on the screen.
Now Ní Chiosáin, or as her pupils call her Múinteoir Clíona, is on her last week of teaching children on television as part of RTÉ’s Home School Hub – a way of reaching children at home during lockdown.
“The idea was that we’d be able to deliver the curriculum as best we could and that there would be a familiar face there, because that’s what a lot of children miss,” she says, adding that it’s a different relationship than the one with their parents.
Ní Chiosáin is clearly passionate about education, and particularly using television to teach languages; she speaks Irish, English and French.
“Myself and [co-presenters] Ray and John use Irish informally throughout our lessons, and I have taught French on two separate occasions on the show as well. it’s a fantastic way to do it.
When kids send in the Home School Extra videos, they say ‘Hi, is mise [ainm],’ and they always say ‘slán’ at the end. So I was seeing a significant increase in my children who were using bits of Irish in their submissions. It’s just a way of normalising it – you don’t have to be puritanical about Irish, it’s nice to mix some Irish with English.
Does she think that television has lost its power to reach young people?
“As a teacher myself, I’ve had children, when I ask ‘Are you going to watch that on the TV…?’ they say, ‘We don’t have a TV’,” she says.
I don’t think TV is losing its way, but I think with a lot more programming, like Home School Hub, it’s brought back a lot of younger viewers, which is ideal.
She says that independent companies should continue to make “fantastic” Irish programmes like this for children.
It’s all very well and good to take shows and dub them, or to take them from different countries and to show them, but there’s nothing [like] homegrown TV shows.. it’s more representative.
You’d come in from school and you’d watch The Den because there’s something so fun about it, it just feels more specially made for you. It’s not American accents, and it’s not reference to high schools…
“As a child, [hearing] your name on the TV or seeing yourself on it is a huge thing, it’s hugely exciting.”
Although it won’t be appearing on our screens after this week, HomeSchool Hub will remain online for the rest of the summer.
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I wonder why….nobody was allowed to have any other medical problem but Covid, I work in a hospital and they were nowhere near full capacity, none of them, public or private, and what on earth was the thinking behind stopping screening, bizarre.
@Jun Stone: A scandal of epic proportions.
@Jun Stone: the state of the health service in this country. We really need to get on top of this. It should our number 1 priority as a nation
@Jun Stone: two of my friends both had minor surgery recently without any problems. One was two weeks ago and the other was a month ago. They were ongoing issues causing discomfort but needed to be done. In the past they had been cancelled, as in last year, I must say I was shocked to hear they got them done while all I see are articles like this during covid. Are they just not, or were they just not preforming more serious surgeries /appointments etc?
@Jun Stone: If you work in a hospital then you should be more than aware that patients were admitted, patients were examined, fully investigated, scanned with CT and MRI, reviewed by multiple teams, received chemo/radiotherapy and operated on during lockdown. You may not have worked 24+ hour shifts during lockdown but I and my colleagues did.
@Philip Kavanagh: and many more (including myself) had follow up cancer scans cancelled. I had two appointments in two separate Dublin hospitals cancelled during the lockdown. One has been rescheduled so far
@Jun Stone: couldn’t agree more. Frankly, having looked at the IFR as things become more clear through proper testing, covid-19 seems to be not as infectious as we initially feared. Even the CDC in the US have released similar findings. I was actually in A&E in April in Castlebar and found that I was brought into the covid-19 triage setting despite having not had covid symptoms – I had chest pain suspected to be linked to heart issues which thankfully was found to be a bacterial infection. I also saw old people brought into the same ward even though they hadn’t been confirmed to have covid-19. So my opinion is if that practise is common to other hospitals then many cases were likely transmitted in the hospital. My great aunt has now fallen ill with a stroke as her routine check ups since her stent placement have ceased. My grandmother who has heart problems has also had her quarterly check ups cancelled indefinitely. All in all, in my circles I have seen lockdown cause more damage than covid-19. My mother had covid-19 in March and was sick with a bad chest infection for about 3 weeks but recovered with steroids. In fact, that’s what most people I know who’ve had say they have had. About 5 years ago I was out of work for 2 weeks and totally bed ridden with viral bronchitis, so I’m not really sure what to believe. I agree we should take measures but I’m not so sure lockdown is in the best interest of total public health in all its facets. I know people have used Sweden as an example but the deaths per million are more or less the same as Denmark. Anyway, let’s look after the vulnerable, and not forget that people with other diseases which need attention are also vulnerable!
@Anna: I’m not and cannot comment on individual cases. @Jun Stone claims that non-Covid patients were ignored or sacrificed on the altar of Coronavirus. I am saying from first hand experience that her comment is a lie designed only for click-bait. I would be very interested to know what hospital she works in and what her exact role entails. Her comment also implies that the hospitals (and therefore their staff) were doing half-nothing during the lockdown. Again so far off the mark, she clearly doesn’t know what she’s commenting on.
@Philip Kavanagh: and many had their vital routine follow ups cancelled . Two in my house included. Do not minimise that because it’s very serious . Simple but vital echocardiograms are cancelled , stress tests cancelled , all bowel cancer follow ups & screenings are cancelled. Breast check cancelled , need I continue ? Chemotherapy is not cancelled thankfully or aa&E but that’s about it in public hospitals .
@Laurel Didn’t: Did you treat Covid patients? Did you make the decision to put them on Airvo or bipap or just intubate them? Did you prone them? Did you send them for CTPA because you had a gut feeling that they had lung clots? Have you spent the last month calling patients who were admitted with Covid (and were lucky to survive) to hear how they are still short of breath, suffer from fatigue, have not gotten their sense of smell back, etc., etc.)? I lived in Sweden, I speak Swedish and I worked in a Swedish hospital. Sweden has had 523.71 deaths per million. Denmark has 103.36 deaths per million. You’re either not good with statistics or you’re just lying.
@Isabel Oliveira: I’m not minimising anything. And I certainly will not be accused of taking missed scans and screening as not being serious. I meet and treat patients everyday. Also believe it or not, frontline workers have health issues and families too. The delays in screening and treatments affect them also. What I said is that the health service did not simply grind to a halt for months. Patients were investigated and treated, and the best was done in an extraordinary situation.
@Sam Glynn: that was the plan, everyone public patient and no electives to be carried out? There may have been some underlying concerns re your friends procedures even though they may appear to have been minor?
@Philip Kavanagh: of course they were! nobody’s implying that nothing happened in hospitals during Covid but where I work and the affiliated public hospital were not operating to capacity and my husband also works in a private hospital, different one to me, and it was also not operating to capacity, maybe different where you work.
@Philip Kavanagh: do not twist what I said I work in a private hospital for a consultant, running clinics and booking procedures and theatre for same…no clinics were run during the Covid pandemic period and only cancer ops were done. The hospital was not full. No routine screening was done . Hope that answers your question. I’m early 60’s and not bothered about ‘clicks’!!!!
@Isabel Oliveira: you know me, I don’t lie…hope your well.
@Jun Stone: So you do admin in a private hospital….You don’t examine, admit, work-up, treat and care for patients. You have no idea what issues patients were presenting with to ED during lockdown. And I am not twisting your words – to quote “nobody was allowed to have any other medical problem but Covid”. Click bait at its most obvious.
@Philip Kavanagh: actually my daughter is a doctor in yet another hospital here in Dublin treating Covid patients. Try not to be so condescending, I may be ‘just admin’ in your opinion but I have first hand knowledge of what actually went on in the hospital I work in as I have been working all through the pandemic.
@Philip Kavanagh: I appreciate your points Philip and I humbly acknowledge that I am not a doctor nor have I treated covid patients. But I did ask the team in Castlebar how busy they were and their response was not full capacity. Where are you getting your info about Sweden? Japan is another example – low deaths. Seasonal influenza causes up to 650,000 deaths per year according to the WHO. Currently we have 560k from covid-19 and given how deaths have been terribly reported perhaps it’s less in reality. Philip we’re not denying that it’s a nasty bug to catch, but given the perspective the aforementioned figures grant, I’m not pro lockdown at all. Re Sweden, I’m comparing Scania with Hovedstaden and Sjealand. Most comparable in terms of locality, demographics etc.
In the VHI or Laya … no problem … you can jump the queue …
If you can pay … get seen today.
If you cant pay .. join the long delay!
Yet EVERY taxpayer pays for the public health service to the tune of €19 Billion a year .It is 11% of GDP .. whereas other countries spend far less at avg of 9% of GDP
What a despicable 2-Tier society is Ireland!
Sign the Petition and demand that this abomination be fixed and fast.
Counting trolleys is a laugh … put a few production engineers in charge of that place and get proper metrics and processes in place … 4 procedues per day v 8 in private hospitals v 16 in other EU countries ….
@Neuville-Kepler62F: Signed and shared.
@Neuville-Kepler62F: It’s not going to happen, the various imbedded unions will stand in the way of any meaningfull progress, it would probably be cheaper if the government paid for all our private health care at this stage. No government over the past 30 years has ever been able to tackle the problems in our health service.
@Alan: but they all said they would.
@Neuville-Kepler62F: Very good comment te how inefficient public hospitals are compared to private ones. We are spending an absolute fortune on healthcare as a country and not getting good value at all. Our doctors and nurses are wonderful. The organisation is a shambles.
@Alan: .. interesting idea. outsource all current public health to private management. Dont limit to Ireland.. look at outsource to other EU countries. Nothing should be discounted at this stage to sort out the sorry mess. – Belfast Bus!
Where is MM now and O Brien his lackey
That figure was already in the hundreds of thousands long before we’d ever even heard of Covid-19. Trying to blame appalling waiting lists on this pandemic is a bit rich, and ignores almost twenty years of similar numbers.
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