Angels,bells,television and Ireland: the place of the Angelus broadcast in the Republic

Abstract

This article examines Ireland’s Radio Telefís Éireann (RTE) Angelus broadcast - a one-minute, televised observance of prayer. Two critical tensions are identified in the broadcast. First, while the RTE Angelus apparently portrays modern, everyday people in the Irish Republic pausing to attend to the sound of the Angelus bell, in fact it relies on pre-modern, mythic versions of community and association, themes generated earlier in the 20th century to legitimize the new Republic. Second, the medium of television structures time and space in a way that does not support such traditional and romantic themes. This contradiction between televised content and form is a typical problem faced by nation-states in that the electronic media used to promote nationalistic sentiment often undermine the traditional themes offered up.

Keywords

Catholicism media nationalism prayer religion

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