RADIO WEEK

The picks of the best of this week’s radio

ENTERTAINMENT The Poetry Programme

SUNDAY, 7.30PM, RTé RADIO ONE ★★★★ Poet Maria McManus joins Olivia O’Leary and we hear about a series of films by some of our newest poetic voices.

Book On One: Bali

MONDAY, 11.20PM, RTé RADIO ONE ★★★★ Journalist, travel writer and poet Rosita Boland reads the complete text of her essay Bali, 2016 from her highly praised book Elsewhere. Bali, 2016 is a brilliantly raw and engaging personal account of her coming to terms with not being a parent.

A Natural History Of Ghosts

MONDAY-FRIDAY, 1.45PM, BBC RADIO 4 ★★★★★

Kirsty Logan continues with her series looking at accounts of ghosts in folklore and history. She sets the scene and finds a rational explanation for these stories, but doesn’t dispel the mystery of these events.

FACTUAL Tobar na Cartlainne

MONDAY, 9.15AM, RNAG ★★★★

The programme today pays tribute to Breandán Ó hEithir, who died on this day 30 years ago at the age of 60. From Inis Mór in the Aran Islands, Ó hEithir was well-known as a radio and TV broadcaster, as a writer and journalist, and as a superb commentator from the 1950s on.

Drivetime MON-FRIDAY, 4.30PM, RTE RADIO ONE ★★★★

Sarah McInerney and Cormac Ó hEadhra (pictured) bring the news and stories of the day from around the country and beyond.

The Lyric Feature SUNDAY, 6PM, LYRIC FM ★★★★

An October trip to Cape Clear Island off the coast of West Cork allows writer and artist Sara Baume and radio producer Regan Hutchins the chance to talk about choosing our paths and sticking to them. They ask why we feel the urge to do the seemingly useless things we always end up doing — whether that’s flying around the world, making abstract art, staring at the empty sky or recording it all on tape.

DRAMA Drama On One SUNDAY, 8PM, RTé RADIO ONE ★★★★

The late Angela Carter’s Transylvanian trilogy Vampirella, The Company of Wolves, and Puss-in-Boots, rocked the radio more than 40 years ago, and remains among the most svelte and stylish of this quirky author’s work. Vampirella, an erotic take on a neurotic tale by a frisky feminist, drinks from a different chalice than its lethal Victorian predecessor, mixing the wines of bloodlust, thirst, and libido, in a sumptuous skit.

The Haunting Of Alma Fielding MONDAY-FRIDAY, 9.45AM (FM), 12.30AM, BBC RADIO 4 ★★★★

This true story of a suburban London housewife who appeared to be suffering persecution by a poltergeist gets Halloween week off to a spine-chilling start.