Iarnród Enda review: He may be a bit wordy, but Kenny just about stays on track in new show
Former Taoiseach Enda Kenny in his new travel series Iarnród Enda.
The promo photo for Iarnród Enda (RTÉ One, Monday 8:30pm) has the former Taoiseach standing next to a bike on what looks like an old bog railway in the middle of nowhere, his hair blown to one side, looking troubled and maybe lost.
I’m worried for him. He also looks a lot like Adrian Dunbar from . I get a gut feeling this show, where Enda cycles around disused railway lines in Ireland, will make for telly gold.
In one way, it doesn’t. It’s just another one of those travelogue shows where someone ambles (cycles in this case) around and talks to local historians, with a bit of rousing diddly-aye music to keep them company on the way. Very enjoyable if that’s your thing, but not exactly breaking the mould.
Except this isn’t Francis Brennan or Mary Kennedy. This is Enda Kenny, the man who took a look at the books when elected Taoiseach back in 2011 and decided there isn’t an ounce of good news to talk about here, so instead I’ll just give the thumbs up whenever anybody asks me a question. We treated him like a joke at the time, but we miss him now that he’s gone, a bit like Mick McCarthy. We could have done with some Enda thumb action over the last few months.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t make him a great TV presenter. Like all politicians, he has been trained to use 100 words, when just 10 will do. While chatting with a historian along the Waterford Greenway, he asked a question that lasted longer than the Famine. After all those years trying to avoid giving a straight answer, it feels like he has a problem now with straight questions.
And then he starts to grow on me. His Adrian Dunbar eyebrows give him a slightly unhinged, wild-man look, that you just don’t get from Marty Morrissey.
(Marty pops up in Iarnród Enda later. I’m sure they probably tried to keep him off camera, but resistance is futile there I’d say.) The scenery is lush, the local historians are great, and cycling along a disused railway line is incredibly now, particularly if you’re looking for staycation ideas. Enda’s husky west of Ireland voice is made for the narration too, which is in Irish, not that you’d notice.
I liked the scene with PJ, a former official on the train line, telling Enda a story about a guy with a chicken sticking out of his pocket. Enda laughs a natural laugh, his eyes squinting like Adrian Dunbar (honestly, it’s uncanny) and they talk about the postcards that PJ used to get from lady admirers who rode the Waterford-Dungarvan stretch back in the day. It’s the kind of window into the past you don’t get from local historians – only handsome railroad guards can give you that kind of gold.
But mainly I just love watching Enda cycling along the greenway, something I’m sure he’d like to say that he paid for himself. It’s soothing stuff. Enda might not be breaking the mould. But he makes for good telly.
