Spotlight: A Contested Centenary, BBC1, Tuesday
A couple of weeks ago RTE opened the united Ireland debate on television with a special edition of Claire Byrne Live.
While A Contested Centenary had a dual role to mark 100 years since partition and the foundation of Northern Ireland, it too was essentially about the prospect of a border poll.
The drive for Scottish independence and the disruption of Brexit have re-ignited the constitutional question just as unionists prepared to celebrate a major milestone.
It was a little bit unusual that BBC Northern Ireland entrusted the job to their former Political Editor, but kudos to Mark Devenport who presented us with a thoughtful, fair and interesting study on the last 100 years.
RTE’s special was a 90-minute debate, while the BBC relegated the discussion to an online forum after Devenport’s main presentation.
It was probably the right decision as the arguments in the north have been so well rehearsed as to be recitable.
A Contested Centenary covered the sectarian killings at the foundation of Northern Ireland in the 1920s, the beginnings of the Troubles, the marking of NI’s 50th anniversary amid the horror of 1971 ("come and join the fun in ’71") and the culmination of the peace process in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
Devenport had some significant contributions, including Boris Johnson, Micheál Martin, Arlene Foster and Michelle O’Neill.
He also spoke to people whose families had suffered during the 1920s violence and again in the Troubles.
Peter Heathwood was paralysed when shot by loyalist gunman in 1979 when they mistook him for an IRA activist who lived near his Cliftonville Road home, while a 17-year-old relative was killed in Carrick Hill in 1920. Peter was unaware of his membership of Na Fianna until told by Spotlight.
Valerie Lockhart’s great grandparents were shot dead by IRA gunmen, personally known to them, at their home outside Newry in 1992 and later lost a relative in the Kingsmill massacre of 1976. Robert Chambers was the youngest victim.
However, the central discussion point out of a Contested Centenary was a Lucid Talk poll on the prospects for a united Ireland.
Its findings were in line with other polls, but pointed again to the unsettled opinion in the south.
It’s not surprising that a society which has preferred to look away from Northern Ireland is unsure of its position now that unification might be an option.
This was a quality opening from the BBC but the most interesting debate may happen in the Republic.
******
PGA Tour, Sky Sports
While the lure of vast amounts of television money drew the owners of Europe’s top football clubs into an enormous mistake in the last week, related moves were happening in another worldwide sport.
Golf’s PGA tour, where the weekly winner collects up to $2m and the year-end FedEx Cup champ walks away with $15m, has introduced a revolutionary concept into sporting remuneration.
The tour chiefs have decided that sporting performance alone should no longer decide the pay cheque.
With its eyes on television ratings and social media engagements, the PGA has launched a $40 million prize fund for “needle movers.”
The “impact programme” will identify the 10 players bringing added value through fan and sponsor engagement.
It’s said to be based on five areas – popularity in Google searches, a player’s brand exposure rating, a player’s appeal rating, engagement on social media and frequency of media mentions.
Our own Rory McIlroy is currently number two on the list despite a barren streak of wins and no major in seven years.
It might sound like a terrible idea, but it should make for fascinating television viewing as the world’s elite are financially incentivised try to make us like them.
