Irish Examiner view: The price we pay for being always on

Blanket coverage of queen's death to continue ahead of Monday's funeral

Liz Truss (left) greets Sinn Féin Vice president Michelle O'Neill with Taoiseach Micheál Martin (right) at a Service of Reflection for Queen Elizabeth II at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast. Picture: Liam McBurney/PA Wire

To a significant number of Irish people, the wall-to-wall coverage of the and its continuation over this weekend, has more than a sense of the surreal given that we are on our own journey through our decade of centenaries underlined most recently, less than a month ago, by the commemorative ceremonies at Béal na Bláth.

To some extent this masks the, often unspoken, fascination many of us have with royalty. And not just us. The French, too, have set aside their own republican instincts and distrust of perfidious Albion to speak and act warmly towards monarchist sympathisers across La Manche. 

And, of course, Brexit or no, many hundreds of thousands of Brits — some analyses put the figure as high as 1.2m — are in permanent residence across Europe and make their presence felt.

But for an explanation about the breadth and depth of reporting and analysis we need to look no further than two simple truths. In 2022, news is non-stop. It is 24/7; 1,440 minutes or 86,400 seconds in every daily cycle.

That is a lot of time and space to fill, and an event such as a royal death followed by a mega-funeral is an irresistible photo-opportunity; not to mention soundbites. Or commentary. And that underlines the second fundamental truth of modern reporting and debate about what constitutes news values — in short, news is where the journalists are.

Let us consider what has emerged so far. The picture of Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill leaning in to the new British prime minister Liz Truss at St Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast while Taoiseach Micheál Martin looks apprehensively over his right shoulder is a classic of its kind.

The debate over whether US president Joe Biden would have to share a coach to St Paul’s Cathedral with other heads of state rather than enjoy the benefit of his heavily armoured personal car known as “The Beast” basically boils down to one simple statement “Potus doesn’t do buses”.

King Charles III and the Queen Consort have problems with a pen as they sign the visitors book at Hillsborough Castle, Co Down. Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Meanwhile, the new monarch has been able to demonstrate two moments of ineptitude. One when his fountain pen started leaking to his clear, and childish, irritation, and another when someone in his household thought it was a good time to issue more than 100 redundancy notices to loyal staff working extended hours to manage an accession.

There is no redeeming factor for Charles in this decision. If he knew of, and agreed, the action then he appears callous and hard-hearted. If he didn’t know, and the processes were set in motion by some functionary, then the question must be asked why he had no awareness of what was being done in his name and why was he out of touch? Either way, he will be told his mother would have done better. That may be a burden he has to carry for the whole of his reign.

By Tuesday, many of us will feel that we have been battered by information and imagery. And we may yearn for the olden days when there was a fixed time to receive news: With the morning papers, or in broadcasts at 6pm, 9pm, or 10pm.

Many people of a certain age can remember hearing of the assassination of John F Kennedy and the electronic media shutdown that followed it immediately.

Others may recall the state funeral of Éamon de Valera in 1975 where hundreds of thousands assembled in Dublin for what The Cork Examiner described as “the last sad farewell” in its page one lament for “the chief.”

In her seminal account of the opening of the First World War1, The Guns of August, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Barbara Tuchman begins with a description of a royal funeral, that of Edward VII in May, 1910.

Tuchman describes how nine kings rode out of the gates of Buckingham Palace as Big Ben tolled nine o’clock followed by “five heirs apparent, forty more imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens — four dowager and three regnant — and a scattering of special ambassadors from uncrowned nations. Together they represented seventy nations in the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and of its kind, the last.”

The gun carriage that was used 112 years ago as a coffin carrier will be redeployed for Monday. But there the similarity will start to diminish. The aristocracy has overwhelmingly been replaced by the political leaders and classes of the third estate. Modern media ensures that we are saturated. In both cases we may never see the like again.