Gerry RyanRTE 2FM, Friday Whistleblowers, RTE Radio 1, Monday

SWITCHING to 2FM and finding that Gerry Ryan is not at work gives you mixed feelings. Yes, not having to listen to Ryan is a good thing, but what if someone worse has replaced him? Evelyn O'Rourke filled in on Friday morning, and whatever else can be said about her, she does at least seem comfortable . . . not in the insufferably self-satisfied way that Ryan is comfortable, obviously, but not girlishly tittering either.

She was joined by Jenny Huston to discuss a new book on regency etiquette, Jane Austen's Guide to Good Manners. They managed a lengthy conversation about the book without mentioning the authors' names, which seemed unpardonably rude.

(Just for the sake of redressing the insult, it was written by Henrietta Webb and Josephine Ross. ) They didn't say an awful lot about Jane Austen either. Though O'Rourke said she was a fan, it was clear they were no experts.

Neither could remember in which book Catherine Morland was the heroine. And when Huston mentioned Sense and Sensibility, she referred to "Emma Thompson's character" and "Hugh Grant's character".

This is the kind of thing that makes an anorak of you.

As it happened, Austen's oeuvre was superfluous to the discussion. The two women focused their minds on whether a return to old-fashioned good manners might be no bad thing, and whether we live in a selfish age. They're not alone in that . . . we all seem fated to turn into our mothers and fathers, and to grumble about the discourtesy of others.

This led them to the topic of good manners in men, and a hint of that ambivalent feminism you see so much of nowadays, in which people keep revisiting arguments from 1975 as if it all needed to be decided on again. Huston likes men to open doors for her; her father always holds her chair as she sits down to a table. (Let's hope that doesn't come back . . . it's a custom as Byzantine as ballroom dancing. When do you sit? What if you sit too soon and are too fat to be pushed? ) Anyway O'Rourke pointed out the main chance. She has no problem with men opening doors, but "I still want the good job", she said.

Sheenagh McMahon's experience is a world away from petty civilities, as it centres on prejudice against women who go against their men. The former wife of disgraced former detective garda Noel McMahon, she was the subject of Whistleblowers, the superlative series that returned to RTE Radio 1 last week. This was described as her first "extensive" interview, and she spoke with fascinating candour about what happened before and after she blew the whistle on her husband.

With minimal interruptions (presenter Alan Torney knows not to make his presence felt except to update the narrative from time to time), she described the morning in 1995 when her husband put a gun to her head. That began the breakdown of their marriage. Then there was the menacing conversation with supposed IRA informer Adrienne McGlinchey, and the gradual realisation that her husband had been in a conspiracy to fake arms finds. She made a complaint against him, and was scorned by her community as a result.

McMahon's courage failed her during this protracted nightmare, and she was not too proud to admit it. She began drinking heavily, and when her children were taken into care, she had a breakdown and ended up in St John of God's. But she came out of the hospital "fighting fit", and determined to renew her allegations. She said she cried with relief when she found her testimony to the Morris tribunal had been believed. Having been portrayed as no more than a resentful wife, she was vindicated by Morris's findings. Her only disappointment now is that the Garda Commissioner and the Minister for Justice have never thanked her, which does seem bad manners.