Public fail to go Wilde over Greatest Irish list

AS Oscar Wilde once pondered: “The public is wonderfully tolerant.

It forgives everything except genius.”

That might explain some of the inclusions in — and omissions from — RTÉ’s heavily promoted campaign to find Ireland’s Greatest Figures as voted for by the masses.

The top 10 revealed yesterday boasts one Stephen Gately, a likeable chap and passable warbler who died tragically young last year and... Well, that’s it really.

The former Boyzone member seems to have got the sympathy vote from the 1,000 people selected at random to give their views on behalf of the whole country.

Or maybe they really did think he was one of the greatest Paddies of all time. Or maybe they had one eye on a boiling pot and an ear to the baby monitor when the pollster rang. Whatever the reason for the choice, it has helped edge out some other minor celebrities of their time — James Joyce, Éamon de Valera, WB Yeats and the aforementioned Wilde among them.

At least this bunch made the top 40 shortlist, even if they did have to share that grouping with another Boyzoner, Ronan Keating, as well as Colin Farrell, Joe Dolan and Liam Neeson.

Neeson may be explained by way of being confused with Michael Collins, whom he played in the movie of the same name and who appears in the top 10 — the real Collins that is, as opposed to the celluloid version.

But if there was no confusion, and no distractions by way of domestic crises, then the shortlist and final 10 represent an intriguing insight into the modern Irish psyche.

Either we’re very rounded individuals, admiring celebrity (Bono, Gately, etc) and socialist (James Connolly, Dr Noel Browne, Padraig Pearse et al) in equal measure, or we’re very deeply conflicted.

Psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists would have a field day except that none involved in their profession — or indeed in any scientific, academic or literary pursuit — has made the top 10 while only a few scribes made the top 40.

Further intrigue, or angst, is expected when the 10 are whittled down to five about which RTÉ will air a series of documentaries in the autumn before taking public votes and finally unveiling the greatest of the great live (or possibly deceased) on the Late Late Show.

The whole idea is taken from a BBC series, the Great Britons, from which Winston Churchill emerged as the greatest of all, topping an elite group which also included William Shakespeare, Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton.

Wilde himself may have sabotaged hopes of similarly sophisticated choices here when he declared: “To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.”

The Brits, however, did yield to populist urges by voting in one boyband member — but then his name was John Lennon.