Window and Mirror: RTE Television 1961-2011

RTÉ television had unlikely roots: the politicians didn't want it and scarcely knew what its role might be; but Northern Ireland had two stations, so the Republic better have one. What did they then expect of a national television service in 1962? How did the early pioneering generation of television broadcasters keep the politicians, the bishops and the Gaelgeoirs at bay and carve out an independent role for the station? And how did the station establish such a reach to its audience and accelerate the transformation of Irish society in the past half century.

Window and Mirror answers some of these questions. It is a portrait of RTÉ television painted with a diversity of brush strokes, some covering well-known controversies, others revealing unknown aspects of Irish television's history. Drawing on hitherto unseen archives, private papers, interviews and RTÉ's rich library of photographic material, John Bowman brings a historian's eye to bear on a remarkable and under-reported chapter in modern Irish history, one in which he himself has been both participant and witness.

The book challenges the argument that RTÉ broadcasters foisted a liberal agenda on unwilling viewers: rather it shows how the station provided a forum eagerly embraced by a public anxious to question traditional values and shapes its own future. Window and Mirror illustrates how RTÉ and the medium of television has had and continues to have unparalleled influence on Irish society.