Homing in on family

IN THAT traditional pre-Christmas lull on the TV front, most of the networks are holding their goodies for the holiday season, and only the reality show finals are causing a real stir.

There are still a few nuggets to be found before Santa arrives, however, even if it may involve a bit more rummaging than usual. For instance, Thursdays seems to be house night, with a double-twist on the traditional family history formats. In both Cé A Chónaigh I Mo Theachsa? (TG4, 8pm) with Manchán Magan and The House That Made Me (Channel 4, 9pm) an old family home acts as a springboard for a look at a particular person’s past.

In the British show, we are brought back to the featured celebrity’s teenage years, with the first episode focusing on Boy George as he returns to his parents’ old house in London. With parents from Thurles, the O’Dowd household was in many ways a typical ex-pat Irish home. But the only one of the family’s five sons not to follow their father into the building trade was a little bit different. Here, George recounts those formative years, his dad’s volatile temper and the tale of how he came out to his parents. At times, it all gets a bit emotional as this dip into his past brings up some painful memories.

On Magan’s show, meanwhile, the passing of time gives him a cushion against hitting any raw nerves. He’s in Ballylongford, Co Kerry, tracing a family history that really revs up in the early part of the last century. Magan’s great grand uncle was Michael Rahilly aka ‘The O’Rahilly’, one of the few leaders of the 1916 Rising to die in the fighting.

We see how Rahilly went from being a wealthy young man about town — complete with race horses and an American heiress wife — to becoming one of the founding members of the Irish Volunteers, a role that would soon lead to his death.

As is often the case with such shows, the personal history provides a perfect gateway to wider history of the times. And with the legacy of the men and women of 1916 being regularly evoked in the context of the current economic crisis, this is a perfect opportunity to remind us of what they were all about.

For soldiers of a more modern variety, Restrepo is a superb documentary following an American army platoon in Afghanistan.

We don’t have a listing for the show, but watch out for it on National Geographic where it seems to be getting regular repeats. Made by The Perfect Storm author Sebastien Junger and British photographer Tim Hetherington, we witness the soldiers living and dying as they attempt to hold a military outpost in a valley in the face of indifference and hostility of the local population and daily attacks by the Taliban. Obviously the views on the situation we hear are from an American perspective, but there’s no narration or obvious political bent in the film.