Time of the Child: A Novel

by Niall Williams

For a decade, under the jurisdiction of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, a plan had been established to consider the value of a national television station. Like all aspirational, unbudgeted policies, progress was indeterminate, but, following anecdotal evidence of Christmas dinners in Dublin paused for the BBC broadcast of the young Queen’s speech, and fearing the country they had won back getting away from them out through the television, the government bit the bullet, and the national station was born. Teilifis Éireann had begun broadcasting the previous New Year’s Eve. The first months’ programmes were unseen in Faha but reviewed by a general hearsay: it was no radio. But when, in July, The Late Late Show went behind the curtains of the country, by accident of budget discovering that what Irish people most wanted to watch was Irish people talking, and westerns, Mrs Prendergast had sent word to town that she wanted a set.