This documentary examines the history of Ireland’s country house gardens over the last 400 years - during which time garden design has reflected political and social changes taking place within the country.
On the 50th anniversary of RTÉ TV and Radharc, the first independent production company to make programmes for Irish television, this 2-part series reveals the remarkable story and legacy of this maverick group of filmmaker priests who, between 1962 and 1996, produced over 400 documentaries in 75 countries on a range of social, political, and religious issues.
Dublin Fire Brigade and ambulance services receive around 133,000 calls a year. Whatever the emergency, whenever it happens, the firefighters are first to respond, putting themselves in danger to save lives. And it’s not just fighting fires. Every member of Dublin Fire and Rescue is a trained paramedic, and whether it’s ambulance services, rapid river rescues, marine emergency response or high line rescues that are called for, they're equipped and trained to give people in need of rescue the best chance of survival. Using state of the art technology including vehicle and helmet mounted cameras this series will bring viewers deep into the heart of the fire scene with the firefighters themselves to witness and experience a level of danger, drama and emotion never before seen on Irish television.
The Great Escape is an Irish television series broadcast on RTÉ One each Tuesday night at 22:15. It follows Irish families who leave Ireland to travel across the world in search of a better life. Two series have thus far been produced, with each series documenting four families who leave Ireland in search of a better life. The series details how they cope in their new surroundings, without any support from friends or family as they set up businesses, develop new careers, meet new friends and overcome cultural differences. Produced by Coco Television, it has thus far featured Irish families who have relocated to such countries as France, South Africa, Spain, Australia, Austria and Italy. The second series in 2009 was part of a group of programmes dealing with the topic of emigration. Others included J1 - Summer in the Sun, Death or Canada, Blood of the Irish and Who Do You Think You Are?.
In a small pocket of Donegal woodland, Killian McLaughlin is attempting to turn back the hands of time and return all of Ireland's majestic native animals to their ancestral home, where they used to live in its ancient forests.
This new series for RTÉ One reveals the hard work and imagination ordinary people have put into their gardens across the island. We’ve sought out the best amateur gardeners to celebrate the joy of transforming your own space. Each week three contestants will open their gates to our experts horticulturalist Jimi Blake, garden designer Niall Maxwell and landscape designer Ingrid Swan. The experts will take the tour, examining every leaf and sniff every flower, to evaluate the gardens. How the garden is laid out, how the planting has been done, and what features have been added, are all investigated. But we also want to know what the garden means to the owner. Maybe it’s a place of adventure for kids, perhaps it’s a special space for relaxation, or maybe it’s a fully functional extension of your home, for entertaining and dining. How the garden fits into and enhances your life is an important factor too.
The Late Late Toy Show—also known as The Toy Show— is an annual iconic and influential Irish national institution, an edition of the world's longest-running chat show, The Late Late Show broadcast on RTÉ One in Ireland each Friday evening. The Toy Show, as it is referred to, is broadcast in late November or early December each year. It has been an annual event since at least the 1970s. The show is regularly the most watched programme of the year on Irish television, with viewership figures rising steadily in recent years. The show, which consists of an adult-only studio audience dressed in traditional Christmas attire, does not accept advertisements which promote toys for its commercial breaks but, whilst new gadget-type toys regularly break down during the live show, being featured on the programme itself has been said to have a major boost to sales of a product over the following number of weeks in the build-up to the Christmas period.
In the 1840s, a catastrophic famine brought about the decimation of Ireland’s poor and the exodus of millions from the island. This major, ground-breaking documentary, narrated by Liam Neeson, explores the famine’s international origins and development in Europe, Britain and Ireland and charts its long-term legacy as it plays out for much of the century that follows. Today the Irish famine is recognised as the worst humanitarian disaster of the 19th Century but what is less recognised is that the crisis impacted far beyond Ireland’s shores. The story of the Blight pathogen that killed the potato crop, starts in the Andes of South America and then reaches into the heart of northern Europe where the collapse of potato crops causes the deaths of 100,000 people adding further fuel to social tensions that lead to Europe’s year of revolutions in 1848.
An intimate portrait of a river and the people it meets on its way to the sea. The six-part documentary series captures the lives and stories of a diverse group of people who are unified by one thing, the river Liffey.
In a brand, new entertainment show comedian Deirdre O’Kane will be joined by some of the country’s most entertaining people to find out what makes them tick and where the funny comes from.
Clear History is a new comedy panel show fronted by Kevin McGahern, with team captains Joanne McNally and Colin Murphy, which will rewrite the past in the name of comedy. Weekly guests will be asked to put comically cringey moments from their personal histories on public display. Opposing teams will re-live iconic moments from the nation’s history as well as their own personal embarrassments, hoping to make them much funnier the second time around. The teams will also take a hilarious dive into Ireland’s colourful past, selecting unforgettable and regrettable moments that could do with being cleared from history. In addition, the series will give members of the public an opportunity to have their own mortifying moments ‘cleared from history’ as they share hilarious tales with the teams by video.
Lords and Ladles feature three of Ireland's top chefs - Derry Clarke, Catherine Fulvio and Paul Flynn - who are challenged to recreate elaborate menus from different centuries in some of Ireland's grandest Country Homes.
Sex & Sensibility is an RTÉ television series which reflects on changing attitudes to sex in Ireland. The four-part series was presented by Simon Delaney. Directed by Imogen Murphy, it was filmed in April and May 2008 on location in Dublin. It was broadcast in June and July 2008.
Features included some commentary from Bill O'Herlihy, Mary O'Rourke, Michael McNiff, Claire Tully, John Kelleher and night club owners Valeria Roe and Maurice Boland.
The series reflected on the changes that had taken place in Ireland since the 1960s, an era when the sexual revolution had not yet reached the shores of the island. It showed how television had played a major part in "loosening everyone up" and altered Irish society "from a gloomy 'Irish Taliban'-style theocracy to the nation of fun-loving sex maniacs we are today". Terry Prone demonstrated her view that soaps, rather than "dusty old current affairs programmes", had been central to social change. The Riordans caused scandal when one of the characters, named Maggie,
Winning Streak is a weekly Irish game show in which five contestants play a number of games to win cars, holidays, and cash prizes up to €500,000. Broadcast on Saturday nights between September and June on RTÉ One, the game show is among the channel's most popular programmes, often ranking among the top five in the ratings. However, there was a significant drop in viewership in the 2008/2009 series. The game show began on 21 September 1990, and has been hosted by popular television personalities Mike Murphy and Derek Mooney. Prize money for the show is funded by the Irish National Lottery, with entry to the game based on National Lottery scratchcards.
Mooney stepped down as the show's host at the end of the 2007–08 season. The 2008–09 season was rebranded Winning Streak: Dream Ticket and was co-hosted by Kathryn Thomas and Aidan Power. They were the first duo to host the programme and Thomas was the show's first permanent female presenter. Aidan Power stood down, after the 2008/09 season en
The Riordans was the second Irish soap opera made by Raidio Telefís Éireann. It ran from 1965 to 1979 and was set in the fictional townland of Leestown in County Kilkenny. Its use of Outside Broadcast Units and its filming of its episodes on location rather than in studio, broke the mould of broadcasting in the soap opera genre, and inspired the creation of its British equivalent, Emmerdale Farm by Yorkshire Television in 1972.
Lifelines is an Irish television chat show presented by broadcaster Liam Ó Murchú. Filmed in front of a studio audience, each programme is devoted to a special celebrity guest. The programme ran for four series from 1993 until 1996.
Broadcaster and gay activist Bill Hughes documents his friendship with the radio and TV star, revealing the story of his life and his death from an Aids-related illness in 1987.