People of the Year - June

The year in people: June

Brian O'Driscoll

A year on the sidelines

The year began badly for Brian O'Driscoll, with a hamstring injury suffered in the opening match of Ireland's feeble Six Nations campaign. His magical intervention in the lucky win over England led many to believe that even if the national team had disappointed, Brian O'Driscoll would shine like an emerald firework during the Lions tour of New Zealand.

And then came the spear tackle, and everything went black. His big chance to play with the best players in the British isles gone, along with a host of lucrative sponsorship and promotional deals. He wouldn't play rugby again in 2005, apart from half an hour for Leinster in the Celtic League on St Stephen's day.

But although he was quiet off-pitch, it was apparent that he had matured. There were no more stupid haircuts, no sexiest-man-in-Ireland competitions. He handled the fallout from the spear tackle incident, in particular, and the disasterous Lions tour in general, with grace and diplomacy. There were rumours of a move at club level from lukewarm, underachieving Leinster to French side Biarritz in the latter part of the year, and who could blame him? A player of Brian O'Driscoll's talent won't get the type of trophies he deserves at Leinster.

It's unlikely that he'll pick any up with Ireland in the near future either. The autumn internationals showcased a timid, apologetic Irish pack, an impotent backline, no leadership and no guts. Even more worrying were the outdated tactics, the lack of depth in key positions, and coach Eddie O'Sullivan's seeming inability to deal with these problems.

In 2006, Brian O'Driscoll's leadership, as well as his electrifying, game-breaking skills, will be crucial if the deep and unexpected trough that Irish rugby has found itself in is to be overcome.

The trouble with Tubridy

Shortly after he took over the 9 am slot on Radio 1 in late June, the critics pounced on Ryan Tubridy. "Ryan Tubridy's show is shuffling along with the kind of gait that suggests it should be called Dead Programme Walking," said the Sunday Times. "His return to the grown-up side of [radio] comes across as an embarrassing mistake," said the Irish Times.

He had been hired after Marian Finucane had failed to stop the flow of listeners that the slot had suffered since Gay Byrne retired. It was an ambitious, risky move for Tubridy. He had been very successful hosting the breakfast slot on 2fm for three years, but the move to the more serious, staid surroundings of Radio 1 presented a different challenge for him. After a few months, the show was reduced from an hour and a half to an hour to accommodate the return of Pat Kenny. The critical reaction softened a little as the year progressed, but a JLNR survey in November saw the average listenership for 9 am slot slip from 353,000 to 348,000 (Tubridy was not presenting for much of that period, however).

His television career continued to do well as his Saturday night chat show, Tubridy Tonight, was recomissioned by RTÉ.

The Colombia three return

The Colombia Three – James Monaghan, Niall Connolly and Martin McCauley – returned to Ireland in August and caused yet another crisis in what is known as the "peace process". Mary Harney was alone at home in charge of the State, with Bertie Ahern and Michael McDowell on holiday. She instantly demanded they be jailed either here or in Colombia for reasons she did not specify, aside from suspicions.

None of the three has offered any plausible reason for being in Colombia in 2002 while using false passports. The supposition is they had been in touch with the local rebel group FARC, either supplying them with material or training FARC members in the use of explosives.

All three were acquitted on terrorist charges in their original trial in Colombia, in part because the trial judge found the evidence of "informers" unconvincing and in part because all three were able to show they were either in Ireland or Cuba on dates when "informer" witnesses said they were in the FARC-controlled area of Colombia. All three were convicted of using false passports and all three had served terms of imprisonment on that charge.

Then two of three appeal judges, who had not had an opportunity to evaluate the credibility of the crucial "informer" witnesses, reversed the verdicts and found the three guilty on terrorist charges and sentenced them to 17 years in jail. All three were on bail at the time and subsequently fled from Colombia and made their way back to Ireland.

Mary Harney wanted them extradited to Colombia to serve their 17 year sentences in spite of the bizarre means by which they were convicted. Alternatively she wanted them to be prosecuted here for the use of false passports, even though only one of them, Niall Connolly, had used an Irish passport falsely and all three had previously served a prison sentence on that charge.

The issue dominated headlines and public discussion for a few weeks and was then forgotten.

Miriam O'Callaghan

Miriam O'Callaghan had a significant success with her summer television chat show, Saturday Night with Miriam. She was relaxed, funny and edgy when necessary, very at ease with the medium. Her production company, Mint, had much less success however with the series on Charles Haughey. There was almost no original research, certainly no revelations. It relayed much of the old clichéd assumptions about Haughey, got several things factually wrong, and although it was edited cleverly, it added more to the sum of misunderstanding about Haughey than knowledge. RTÉ was primarily to blame for not assigning the programme to someone with substantial current affairs experience and expertise, such as the director of television himself, Noel Curran, the editor of Prime Time David Nally, or someone of the calibre and experience of Sean O'Rourke or Gerald Barry.

the rossport Five

Being voted "Irish phenomenon of the year" by listeners to an RTÉ radio show may be more indicative of an active support network than of genuinely phenomenal status.

But there's no doubt that the actions of Brendan Philbin, Willie Corduff, Micheál Ó Seighín and Vincent and Philip McGrath put a remote corner of Co. Mayo squarely in the middle of the political map.

For more than three months, starting on 29 June, the five men were imprisoned for contempt of court for refusing to undertake not to block construction work on the inshore gas pipeline near their homes in Rossport, Co Mayo. Much of the pipeline route crosses three of the men's land.

Shell E&P Ireland, the developer of the Corrib Gas Project, stopped construction work on the pipeline and the processing plant in July "to allow for a period of discussion and dialogue", but waited until October to lift the injunction against the protesters and permit the five men to be released from Cloverhill Prison, near Dublin.

The Rossport Five, described as "a hook for the media" by a spokesperson for the Shell to Sea campaign, were greeted by celebrations at home and hailed as "heroes" by newspapers that had previously shown indifference or hostility to the issues they raised.

"Those issues long predated the five men being in prison, and they continue now that the men are out," Dr Mark Garavan told Village. Their imprisonment "brought the issues to a national stage, in particular the issue of safety. The agenda for 2006 is that the gas project be reconfigured with safety as its priority."

Two safety reviews of the project were released late in the year: a highly critical one prepared by a US firm, Accufacts, for the Centre for Public Inquiry; and another (in draft form) by Advantica, commissioned by the Government. The terms of reference for the latter were seen as narrow by campaigners, but it did call for a cap on the pressure of the gas in the pipeline.

The Rossport Five are only the tip of the protesting iceberg. There is a daily presence of protesters outside the site of the processing plant at Bellanaboy. Under an arrangement with Shell, observers from the campaign go on site regularly to ensure that only environmental and maintenance work is taking place.

The Government-appointed mediator, Peter Cassells, has not yet done any mediating, nor has any format for discussions been agreed between the parties. If Shell attempts to revive work without major changes to its pipeline plans, the phony peace of late 2005 is sure to be replaced by more phenomenal struggle in Mayo.