RTÉ’s Tommy Tiernan Show at its best

The Three guests on RTÉ’s Tommy Tiernan Show on Saturday night were Martin O’Neill, Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Marti Pellow.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell hails from Lurgan, Co Down, works in Oxford, where she is an astrophysicist or astronomer.

She spoke of how our picture of the universe has dramatically changed over the last 50 years.

Jocelyn subscribes to the Big Bang theory, explaining that the universe is constantly expanding, having started from a tiny ball in a state of extreme unsteadiness.

The Milky Way is our own galaxy. Stars are grouped into galaxies and there are a hundred thousand million galaxies. And probably one hundred thousand million stars per galaxy. One hundred thousand suns.

The Lurgan woman gave the viewer the tiniest of glimpses into the vastness of the universe. It was brilliant television.

Jocelyn is a Quaker and spoke about her belief in the Holy Spirit.

Tommy did not ask her how her faith complements her work as an astrophysicist.

While for the viewer, who knows zilch about the subject, listening to this extraordinary Lurgan woman, one gets the sense there is no contradiction between science and faith in God. But one might well be inclined to scratch one’s head and wonder really was it ever a mortal sin to eat meat on Friday or to miss Mass on a Sunday.

It was the Tommy Tiernan Show at its best.

It’s available for viewing on the RTÉ Player.