Hostage is a six-part Irish history documentary television series broadcast on RTÉ One in June 2008 each Friday at 20:30. The series spans a period from the 1970s to the 1990s and features footage from the RTÉ Archive Production Unit of bank raids and political kidnaps in remote locations such as Beirut and Clonmel. Amongst the more widely publicised cases featured on the show is the story of Mary Coen, a Galway nurse who was kidnapped by a liberation movement in Western Ethiopia in 1988. She was one of two Irish nurses who were working with the Irish charity Concern Worldwide. They had travelled to remote Western Ethiopia the year before Mary Coen's kidnap to work on a Concern project in the African country. The series is produced by the RTÉ Archive Unit.
Use It Or Lose It is a weekly Irish television series broadcast on RTÉ One. Each episode features a well-known sportsperson who revisits their old youth team and sets about reforming them for one final game within six weeks. Eight former athletes featured in the eight-part series broadcast in summer 2008. The athletes are equipped with personal trainers, nutritionists, coaches and physios to aid the players, health problems are explored and professional coaches conduct regular weigh-ins, blood pressure and lung capacity testing and suggest workouts and diets suited to the individual physiques of each team member. Each programme also focused on a particularly unhealthy individual, typically one who was clinically obese, had high blood pressure and some other extreme health issues. Their journey to a healthier lifestyle became the focus of the show. The series is produced by Stirling.
7 Days was a Radio Telefís Éireann current affairs programme presented by Brian Farrell, Brian Cleeve and John O'Donoghue and broadcast in Ireland from 1966 until 1976.
Ryan Confidential is an Irish home-produced television programme which was broadcast on RTÉ One until 2010. It was presented by Gerry Ryan, until his unexpected death at the age of 53 on 30 April 2010. The programme was created by the producer David Blake Knox.
The format placed Ryan and celebrity guests in restaurants and hotels, designed to provide a more intimate setting than a studio. Ryan then interviewed his guests. The programme, commissioned by RTÉ's Entertainment Department, proved popular, and ran for eight seasons.
Kenny Live is an Irish weekly chat show on RTÉ that was hosted by Pat Kenny. The show debuted in 1988 and aired every Saturday night, except during the summer months, directly after the main evening news. In 1999 Kenny Live came to an end when Kenny succeeded Gay Byrne as host of The Late Late Show.
Saturday Live is an Irish chat show hosted by various guest presenters and was broadcast live on Saturday nights. The show was broadcast during the autumn-spring season and was created to fill the vacant Saturday night slot after the departure of The Late Late Show from Saturday to Friday nights. It was first broadcast on RTÉ One on Saturday 25 October 1986. Saturday Live featured guest interviews and live music from guest music groups and featured a mix of serious discussion and light chat aimed at a younger audience than its main rival, The Late Late Show. The original programme ended on 11 April 1988.
Saturday Live had a series of guest presenters, including the leader of Fine Gael Alan Dukes, Rhonda Paisley, soccer pundit Eamon Dunphy, industrialist Tiede Herrema and current affairs broadcaster Pat Kenny, whose own first attempt at a chat show, The Pat Kenny Show had failed. Kenny proved such a success in the Saturday Live show that he was subsequently given his own chat show under the name Kenny Live.
Kennedy is an Irish chat show show hosted by Mary Kennedy. The show aired live on Saturday nights as a summer "filler" between 14 June and 23 August 1997.
Tolka Row is an Irish soap opera set in a fictional housing estate on the northside of Dublin. Based on Maura Laverty's play of the same name, Tolka Row was first broadcast on 3 January 1964 and aired weekly for five series until it ended on 31 May 1968.
As Telefís Éireann's first venture into soap operas, Tolka Row quickly became a staple of the new television station's schedule and set the pace for all future home-produced serials. Its popularity also resulted in the station developing a second soap opera, The Riordans, in 1965.
Tolka Row is similar in format to the long-running British soap Coronation Street, from which it borrows its main premise. The show was centred around the Nolans, a typical working-class Dublin family, and their neighbours, the Feeneys. All episodes were filmed in studio at Telefís Éireann's Television Centre in Donnybrook, Dublin.
Open House is an Irish afternoon television show broadcast on RTÉ One between 1998 and 2003. The last episode was broadcast in 2004. It was presented by Mary Kennedy and Marty Whelan and focused on lifestyle, cookery and human interest issues. Presenters included Dermot O'Neill, the popular gardening expert. The show was broadcast five days a week, and was also transmitted to the United Kingdom via Tara Television.
Open House replaced Live at 3, and was itself replaced by The Afternoon Show.
It was popular with students and rapper Coolio laughed when two of the show's researchers replaced missing dancers.
Ear to the Ground is a weekly television programme broadcast in Ireland on RTÉ One on Thursday evenings at 19:00. The show consists of reports about various countryside, rural environmental issues. It is currently in its sixteenth season and is produced by Independent Pictures. Ear to the Ground is presented by Ella McSweeney, Darragh McCullough and Helen Carroll. Previous presenters include Maeve Dineen, who left after the fifteenth season and the long-running Mairead McGuinness, who has since become a Member of the European Parliament for Fine Gael. The show is repeated on RTÉ One after the lunchtime news each Sunday.
Showhouse is an Irish makeover reality television series broadcast on RTÉ One. Presented by the interior architect Neville Knott, it is a creation of Vision Independent Productions, responsible for the popular television shows, The Restaurant and Colm and Jim-Jim's Home Run. The concept of the show is that two professional interior designers take over two newly built and identical houses and compete to create a winning interior design. They have approximately twelve weeks to plan their design, followed by six days spent working on the interior. The seventh day is launch day when the public are allowed access to vote on the winning design. There have thus far been four series. A number of once-off celebrity editions have been broadcast; Linda Martin and Kevin Sharkey featured in the one after series two, whilst series four was followed up by featuring the models Pamela Flood and Lisa Murphy in an episode which was broadcast on 29 December 2008.
Hanging with Hector is an Irish television series broadcast on RTÉ One. It is presented by the Irish personality Hector Ó hEochagáin. The show centres on Ó hEochagáin's exploits as he meets a different well-known individual for each episode and spends the day "hanging out" with them, engaging in their lifestyles and partaking in their chosen pursuits in a manner deemed entertaining for the Irish television viewing public. It has been criticised for being "about as original as washing your teeth each morning".
It is very similar to its more recent female equivalent Livin' with Lucy, although Ó hEochagáin, unlike Lucy Kennedy, does not actually live with the celebrities. The celebrities are largely male, with the most recent season including the chef Richard Corrigan, the former Irish rugby union international Trevor Brennan, the rugby analyst and radio presenter George Hook and, most recently, the horse trainer Aidan O'Brien. However, the female athlete Derval O'Rour
Ryantown was an RTÉ Television light entertainment show hosted by Gerry Ryan that was broadcast on Saturday evenings for one season between 1993 and 1994. It was set in Gerry Ryan's house in the fictional Ryantown. The show was broadcast during the autumn-spring season.
Brendan O'Carroll's Hot Milk and Pepper is an RTÉ television quiz show show presented by Brendan O'Carroll and also starring Gerry Browne that was broadcast for two series between 1996 and 1998. The show featured two teams of four competing each week.
Pobal was a bilingual English-Irish current affairs programme broadcast each Sunday evening at 17:30 on RTÉ One. It acted as the bilingual sister to Nationwide. It was presented by Síle Seoige and later by Caroline Ní Dhubhchóin. Each show was filmed from a different location in rural Ireland in a similar format to Nationwide. The programme had a Polish reporter, titled Margaret Brandys. The title of the series came from the Irish language word for "community", which is what the programme was all about.
In 2009, due to RTÉ cutbacks, the programme was axed.
Ballet Chancers is an Irish television programme broadcast on RTÉ One in late 2008. Featuring the ballerina, Monica Loughman, it began on 16 November 2008. In the show Loughman attempts to turn six streetwise hip hop dancers into elegant ballet dancers over a period of four months. At the end of the show they may, if successful, partake in a performance of The Nutcracker with Loughman's own company, The Irish Youth Russian Ballet Company which took place in the 21 December finale.
Highly Recommended was a six-part Irish lifestyle game show broadcast each Sunday on RTÉ One at 20:30. Presented by Joe Duffy, the premise was that members of the general public would compete each week to convince a panel of consumer experts that their deal ought to be "Highly Recommended". The panel, consisting of Ben Dunne, Conor Pope and Barbara McCarthy, scrutinised the deals placed before them whilst Duffy embarked on a trek into the studio audience to ask its opinions. A debate ensued and, if the deal stayed strong and the panel remained convinced, the consumer in question won a total of €2000. Topics incurred ranged from health insurance, medical and dental holidays, electrical goods, online shopping and weddings. The public could also give their opinion by voting on an online poll to determine whether they "Highly Recommended" the featured deals. The results were then featured at the beginning of the next show. The show aired in November 2007.
The Restaurant is a successful Irish reality television programme broadcast on RTÉ One. The seventh series began on 16 November 2008, running on Sundays at 20:30. In each episode a celebrity head chef takes on the culinary challenge of producing a top class, three-course meal with two value-for-money wines. This is then served to the restaurant's customers and the resident critics, Tom Doorley and Paolo Tullio, who are joined each week by a guest critic. The chef's identity remains a secret to those being served their food until the end of the show when all has been eaten. The critics give the meal a star rating of between one and five, which is then pulled from an envelope after the head chef joins the critics' table. The Restaurant is voiced over by Seán Moncrieff and the restaurant is manned by John Healy, Maitre'D; the kitchen staff, chefs David Workowich, Stephen McAllister and Louise Lennox and food researcher, Stephen Quin, and waiting staff, waitress, Elaine Normile and waiters, Lee Bradshaw a
Charlie Bird Explores is the title of a series of documentary films shot by RTÉ News and Current Affairs chief news correspondent Charlie Bird, in which the reporter sets off to explore some of the most beautiful and remote places in the far corners of the planet Earth and moans about having to do so. The series broadcast over a number of years features Bird's adventures in the Arctic, the Ganges and the Amazon. The documentaries are produced by Crossing the Line Films.
For his Amazon journey, Bird crossed South America from ocean to ocean, tracing the course of the Amazon River and, somewhat annoyingly to many viewers, complaining about everything associated with the Amazon along the way. En route he tells the story of this region and how it plays a crucial role in global warming and environment change. For his Ganges trek, Bird took a path from the sea to the river's source, battling from the Bay of Bengal to the Himalayas along the river. In the Arctic, filmed in 2008, Bird met the Inuit community in Gri
Upwardly Mobile was an Irish television sitcom that was made and broadcast by RTÉ. Three series, including three Christmas specials, were originally broadcast on RTÉ One between 8 September 1995 and 26 December 1997.
The programme starred Joe Savino and Catherine Byrne as northside couple Eddie and Molly Keogh, who win the Lotto and move to the exclusive Belvedere Downs estate on the southside of Dublin. Backed by a strong supporting cast, the series chronicles their highs and lows in life, in particular the contrast with their upper-class neighbours.