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.
Off the Rails is a fashion magazine show presented by Pamela Flood and Caroline Morahan shown on RTÉ One. The show was previously presented by Liz Bonnin and Flood, before Bonnin decided to leave. In 2005, RTÉ changed the format to "Beat the Stylist" where a friend or family member had to try to get the person who was being made over to pick their clothes instead of the stylist's choice. In 2006, RTÉ reverted to the original format. In 2008, amid rumours of its axing, Brendan Courtney and Sonya Lennon took over as co-presenters.
Traffic Blues is a documentary series broadcast on RTÉ One. It follows various traffic officers from the Garda Síochána.
The first series follows the Garda Traffic Corps in a six-part series. The series was filmed over six months, putting the Dublin Metropolitan division based in Dublin Castle, the Louth division taking in stations in Drogheda and Dundalk and the Donegal division focusing on Burnfoot and Letterkenny areas in the centre of attention.
It is similar in format to the British programmes Traffic Cops or Road Wars. Six episodes were made for the series, which aired on Sundays at 20:30.
European Parliament Report is an Irish Television programme broadcast on RTÉ One and RTÉ News Now. It is produced by RTÉ News and Current Affairs. The programme airs weekly on Sunday nights at around midnight usually after The Week in Politics. The programme features reports of recent happenings from the European Parliament in Strasbourg. The programme is filmed from inside the European Parliament buildings and usually features a panel of guests discussing the recent proceedings in parliament. The programme is presented by Ray Colgan.
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.
With unprecedented access to archive footage and extensive new background research this is the up-to-date story of Gerry Hutch by some of those who know his life best.
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.
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.
Class Act is an Irish talent show which last aired on RTÉ One on Sundays at 18:30 throughout September and October 2008. It was presented by Derek Mooney. The show involved a search for young people with special talents whose efforts are then judged on television.
In 2009, due to RTÉ cutbacks, the programme was axed.
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.
Blood of the Irish is a two-part documentary miniseries broadcast on RTÉ One and presented by the professional gardener Diarmuid Gavin. It commenced airing on 5 January 2009 and completed broadcasting seven days later. In the documentary, Gavin sought 'the truth' about Irish genealogy. Genetic research into a selection of Irish DNA and its origins was undertaken for the programme at Trinity College, Dublin and EthnoAncestry. They revealed some previously unheard ideas. An attempt was also made to extract ancient DNA from some of the oldest human remains that have to date been located within the boundaries of Ireland.
One to One is an Irish television series which airs on RTÉ One. Since the first edition was broadcast at 12:15pm on 1 October 2006, the programme has featured personal interviews with a well-known figure from Ireland and abroad, one per episode. The second series moved to a Monday slot, beginning on 1 October 2007. A third series was broadcast during the summer months of June and July 2008. The fourth series commenced airing on 10 November 2008.
Series presenters have included Aine Lawlor, Bryan Dobson, George Lee, Richard Crowley, Paul Cunningham, John Murray and Cathal Mac Coille. Guests to have featured in the series include Hans Blix, Michael Smurfit, Michael Colgan, Ben Dunne, clergymen Diarmuid Martin and Peter Sutherland, Ulick McEvaddy, T. K. Whitaker, Seymour Hersh, Alan Johnston, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Seán FitzPatrick, Roy Foster, Samantha Power, Declan Ganley and Jeffrey Sachs. Each edition is typically approximately forty minutes length in total, with all the interviews available to watch
Hall's Pictorial Weekly, Incorporating the Provincial Vindicator is an Irish satirical television series which was broadcast on Radio Telefís Éireann from 1971 to 1980.
Regarded as RTÉ's flagship comedy show, it featured satirical sketches on current news stories and popular culture, as well as parody songs, comedy sketches, re-edited videos, cartoons and spoof television formats. The show was scripted and presented by Frank Hall, while a large ensemble cast, including Frank Kelly and Eamon Morrissey amongst others, performed the sketches.
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.