This week’s Scannal takes a look back at RTÉ’s controversial drama from the 1970’s, The Spike, and the whirlwind that surrounded it. In 1978, RTÉ launched a 10 part drama series which was destined to become front page news. It raised uncomfortable issues about inequality in the Irish education system and in Irish society in general. It also featured the first ever naked Irish woman filmed by and shown on the national broadcasting service. The series was called The Spike and it was axed by RTÉ after the fifth episode. Set in a tough post-primary co-educational public sector school in an unspecified urban working class area in the late seventies, The Spike was a new departure for RTÉ Television drama. It was to be a gritty and realistic picture of a particular layer of the Irish education system and flowing from that a wider of picture of Irish society with all its inequalities, hypocrisy and incongruities. As soon as The Spike went on air, the letters pages of the newspapers were full of negative reviews and reactions. By episode five, The Spike had gone too far. The decision was taken by RTÉ’s Director General, Olivia Maloney, to withdraw it. The final episode aired dealt with adult evening classes and featured an art class involving a nude model. Although tastefully shot, the producer’s brave decision to show the nude model sounded the death knell for the series. Once actress Madelyn Erskine cast off her clothes, The Spike was doomed. In the ensuing days, The Spike and RTÉ were roundly condemned by the press, while RTÉ was inundated with irate letters and phone calls from angry viewers. County Councils up and down the country passed motions calling for the axing of The Spike, saying it was vulgar and suggestive and a slur on teachers and the education system. JB Murray, head of the League of Decency and a staunch campaigner against The Spike from the outset, suffered a heart attack while phoning the papers to complain about the nude sce