General knowledge quiz hosted by Claire Byrne in which contestants face a series of rounds, with winners of the heats progressing in the tournament structure. Each show features three contestants, who face a series of rounds before one is elimnated, with the final pair facing a quickfire decider to determine who goes through to the next stage.
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.
Weekly topical chat show, hosted by Ray D'arcy
The Brendan Grace Show is an Irish variety show presented by Brendan Grace. The studio-based show aired on Friday nights between 29 October and 10 December 1982.
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.
Kathryn Thomas looks at the almost overnight emergence of weight loss medications and explores their huge impact.
Donal Skehan sets off on a food-filled road trip around Ireland, ticking off some culinary hotspots on his foodie bucket list.
"Mission to Prey" is the title of an episode of the RTÉ programme Prime Time Investigates broadcast in May 2011. It was presented by RTÉ's Aoife Kavanagh. The programme contained allegations which defamed Fr. Kevin Reynolds, an Irish Catholic priest, and caused uproar across Ireland when the truth was later revealed. Kavanagh falsely accused Fr. Kevin Reynolds of raping a teenage girl and fathering her child in Kenya. As a result of the broadcast, Fr. Reynolds was removed from his home and from his parish ministry and his reputation was destroyed. It subsequently emerged that the allegations were baseless and that RTÉ had therefore defamed Fr. Kevin Reynolds. Director-General of RTÉ Noel Curran admitted the broadcasting of "Mission to Prey" was "one of the gravest editorial mistakes ever made" in RTÉ's history.
Callan Kicks the Years is a six-part TV series unlike any comedy ever made in Ireland, romping through the 100 years since the 1921 Treaty using sketches and satirical documentary. The series will kick Dev’s grim legacy, the 60s showbands versus feminism era, the twin 80s crazes of Haughey and moving statues, Jackie’s Army, the Bertie Boom through to the Hangover of recession, in a way only comedy can. The most controversial periods of Irish history stripped down for a kicking? There may be calls to Liveline. Talk to Joe.
Premier Soccer Saturday was formally the principal weekly club association football programme on RTÉ. In June 2013 RTÉ Sport confirmed that due to cost cutting initiative's to save the station up to €1.3m a year, it will no longer have the Irish rights to television coverage of the Premier League, with the 2012-13 Premier League season being the final season shown on RTÉ Sport. It was broadcast on RTÉ Two every Saturday evening between 19:30 and 21:00 and occasionally on Sunday during the English league soccer season, showing highlights of Premier League football matches. When the show was aired on a day other than Saturday, it used the appropriately customised title. The programme only showed English association football, as Monday Night Soccer covers Irish association football. The most recent theme tune for the show was a cover of the Republica song, "Bloke".
Guerrilla Gourmet is an Irish television series broadcast on RTÉ One. The series features professional chefs from various backgrounds, such as Dylan McGrath and Kevin Dundon, who each take on a new challenge. Each episode sees a different chef try to construct a temporary "guerrilla restaurant" out of nothing, taking on the task of locating a premises, composing a menu, cooking the food to serve to the customers and finding the actual customers themselves. The six-part series began broadcasting on 11 February 2008 at 20:30. Locations featured include Blackrock College, the Royal Hospital Kilmainham and the Rock of Cashel.
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, went on the pill. The "contraceptive train" to Belfast was also focused on, evoking memories of an era when the devices were illegal in the Republic of Ireland, prompting people to travel to Northern Ireland to stock up on their contraceptive needs. Also featured was The Late Late Show and the uproar it caused when it gave airtime to a group of lesbian nuns, Bill Hughes, who spoke about the underground gay scene in Ireland, Senator David Norris having his sexuality called into question when he was asked if he was "sick" by a TV presenter, the Leeson Street clubbing scene in its early years and Toni the Exotic Dancer, a housewife from Tallaght, Dublin who flashed her ample bosom for the crowds who thronged the urban pubs after mass. Video of protesters with portable Virgin Mary statues at work outside the RTÉ studios were also shown.
Martin Shanahan shows that anyone can cook simple tasty seafood at home.
Buyer Beware! is an Irish television consumer affairs series. The show, hosted by Philip Boucher-Hayes, is broadcast on Thursdays at 20:30 on RTÉ One. It follows a similar format to BBC's Watchdog. The first episode aired on 6 November 2008. Enable Ireland responded to the feature in the first episode on bogus plastic bag collectors by issuing a press release.
Charting the meteoric rise and staggering downfall of Quinns empire. Built on gravel, guts and genius, it nevertheless fell prey to infighting and eventual misinformation campaigns against former associates.
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.
Sports Stadium was an Irish television sport programme on Raidió Teilifís Éireann. Broadcast between 1973 and 1997, it was RTÉ's flagship sports programme and one of its longest-running shows. It ran in a variety of slots, but in its final years aired on RTÉ Two on Saturdays between 1:00pm–6:00pm. Its first presenter was Brendan O'Reilly who lasted for fourteen years. Other presenters during the show's run included Liam Nolan, Fred Cogley, Michael Lyster, Peter Collins and finally Tracy Piggott. The format of the show was very similar to the BBC's Grandstand or ITV's World of Sport, and indeed Grandstand's racing coverage was often simulcast on the show. The earlier part of each show would feature a mixture of racing and recorded highlights of other sports. The centrepiece of the afternoon for many years was a live 3:00pm Football League Division One game, which would be followed by the classified football results. Coverage of the All-Ireland League was also featured on the show. For much of its life, the show's theme music was the distinctive keyboard riff from the Europe song "The Final Countdown". The original recording was used in the 1980s, but a re-arranged version was used during the 1990s.
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. Following Kenny's take over of The Late Late Show in 1999 and the ending of Kenny Live the Saturday Live formula was revived to fill the vacant Saturday night slot yet again. The second coming of the show proved unpopular and was ended after only one series.
Build Your Own Home follows the trials and tribulations of homeowners from across Ireland, as they take on the mammoth challenge of building their own home – under the watchful eye of master builder and building teacher, Harrison Gardner. From a brand new build in West Cork, a Midlands cottage doer-upper, a Limerick farmhouse renovation to a Dublin extension each episode has one thing in common – no building experience and very tight budgets. As the initial excitement of a new project invariably dies down these brave self builders still need to work, pay rent, mind kids and... build a house. No-one said it was going to be easy – as Harrison told them from the start. Across days, weeks and months of hard labour the homeowners are taught and mentored by Harrison, who believes that anyone can learn how to build.
Teens in the Wild is an Irish observational documentary television series broadcast on RTÉ One. The series was presented by the clinical psychologist David Coleman, who previously appeared in the television series Families in Trouble. The first series, broadcast in four parts over four weeks, followed six male teenagers, each with their own individual behavioural difficulties, as they undertook a three-week activity programme at Delphi Adventure in Connemara, County Galway during September 2008. It commenced broadcasting on 2 February 2009, airing each Monday at 21:30. The series producer, Christine Thornton, was reported as stating that the series would demonstrate "often dramatic and emotional insights" in relation to teenaged behaviour. The camp was declared a "once-off" experience by Coleman in a live web chat held on RTÉ.ie on 11 February 2009. He also claimed that he would be open to doing a similar series involving teenage girls, since this one involved boys exclusively. To supplement the show, Coleman initiated a regular slot focusing on teenage issues each Wednesday on the daytime television programme, Seoige. A second series aired in 2010, this time involving an all female cast.
