Series 2 of the Peter McKenna-penned crime drama KIN has already garnered over 1,100,000 total streams on RTÉ Player ahead of the airing of Episode 7 this Sunday on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player. This number brings the series total to over 4 million since the Kinsella Family crashed onto Irish screens in September 2021 with series 1.

The cast of the Dublin-based series includes Claire Dunne (Amanda Kinsella), Charlie Cox (Michael), Aidan Gillen (Frank), Maria Doyle-Kennedy (Birdy), Emmett J Scanlan (Jimmy), Francis Magee (Bren), Yasmin Seky (Nikita), and Sam Keeley (Viking).

In episode 6 which aired last Sunday, tunned viewers saw tyrant Bren seek out granddaughter Anna openly against her father Michael’s wishes. Current family matriarch Amanda looked for global business opportunities, and Birdy’s past and present trauma began to collide.

This weekend on KIN, Bren’s chaos reaches an apex, and the family is driven to mayhem. Michael and Viking both suffer heartbreak, while uncle Frank seeks a change. The Batuk’s sew their own discord, and Amanda and Jimmy’s son Anthony does the unthinkable…

The series finale airs on May 7th.

Dermot Horan, Director of Acquisitions and Co-Productions RTÉ said: “From all the research we have done we know that our viewers want the choice of when to watch their dramas. KIN proves this point, with phenomenal figures on RTÉ Player”

Aoife Byrne, Head of RTÉ Player said: “Audiences are loving Season 2 of KIN and already the Kinsella family drama has generated over 1.1M streams to date. Across both seasons 1 and 2, the drama has clocked up a total of more than 4 million streams in its lifetime. Along with other recently launched Irish Drama boxsets such as The Dry, Smother and SisterS, and iconic favourites such as Love Hate and Normal People, KIN has helped deliver strong year on year growth for RTÉ Player in 2023 where we’ve seen +21% growth in streams and +49% in time spent so far this year. And we’ve lots more to come, with some exciting new and exclusive boxset titles being added to the RTÉ Player catalogue across the year.”

Catch the penultimate episode of KIN season 2 this Sunday, 9.30pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.

An upcoming documentary series The Silent Civil War will share the epic, poignant and often challenging testimonies of family members of a number of those who were involved in the Civil War in Ireland between 1922 and 1923. The two-part series will begin on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player on Wednesday 26th April at 9:35pm.

The documentary series also unearths over 30 hours of previously unheard audio recordings of 32 prominent figures involved in those revolutionary years in Ireland. Recorded by a young American researcher, Harlan J. Strauss, as part of his post-graduate work in 1972, the tapes feature original recordings of Frank Aiken, Dan Breen, Peadar O’Donnell, Máire Comerford, John A. Costello, Ernest Blythe, Seán Dowling among many others. Those tapes have remained untouched for fifty years.

At a launch screening in UCD yesterday, over 100 hours of unedited material including the Harlan J. Strauss archive and over 80 interviews recorded for the series was presented to the National Folklore Collection, where it will now permanently reside.

RTÉ Director General, Dee Forbes said: “I am so proud of this important two-part documentary series which we are bringing, with the support of our partners, to RTÉ One and RTÉ Player and which forms part of the latest chapter of RTÉ’s continuing commemoration of the Decade of Centenaries. The inclusion of invaluable memories of the Civil War that were passed on through families and communities throughout Ireland, along with audio recordings of men and women central to this revolutionary period in Irish history bring powerful and significant perspectives to the complicated story which has shaped modern Ireland.” 

Dr Sandra Collins, University Librarian at University College Dublin said: “We are delighted to add these voices recounting the impact of the Civil War to the National Folklore Collection in UCD Library. Having the interviews preserved and available in the National Folklore Collection supports research and teaching across the university, and enables us to increase awareness and engagement across Ireland and internationally. This is a very valuable addition to a range of successful activities carried out by UCD throughout the Decade of Centenaries.” 

Liam McGrath, Executive Producer of The Silent Civil War said: “It was a great privilege for our team to sit down and record so many people about the stories of the Irish Civil War that were passed down to them. We are delighted that all these interviews will be preserved for future generations to learn from.”

The Silent Civil War is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media under the Decade of Centenaries Programme, 2012 – 2023. Commissioned by RTÉ, this series was produced by Scratch Films in association with the National Folklore Collection, UCD and RTÉ Archives.

Key members of Silent Civil War Memory Project Historical team include: Dr. Conor Mulvagh, UCD School of History, Dr. Críostóir MacCárthaigh, National Folklore Collection, Dr. Mary McAuliffe, Tomás MacConmara, Liz Gillis, Caitlin White, Dr Síobhra Aiken and Thomas O’Callaghan.

The Silent Civil War will air RTÉ One and the RTÉ Player on Wednesday 26th April, 9.35pm and continues Wednesday 3rd May.  

The television series is accompanied by a library of supporting pieces written by those involved in the project. This is available on www.rte.ie/history 

IMAGE: Dr Sandra Collins, University Librarian, UCD President-elect Professor Orla Feely, Dee Forbes, Director General, RTÉ and Liam McGrath, Scratch Films at the launch of The Silent Civil War at UCD which will be aired across RTÉ platforms, presenting over 100 hours of unedited material and testimonies of Irish Civil War revolutionaries and their families to the National Folklore Collection in UCD Library 

The Dawn Chorus 2023 
 Sunday 7th May from midnight to 07:00 on RTÉ Radio 1

Love nature, love the Dawn Chorus!

Listen to the birds sing: in the early hours of Sunday 7th May, Ireland’s airwaves will come alive with birdsong

RTÉ Radio’s live Dawn Chorus is one of the most ambitious and innovative radio projects to have hit the Irish airwaves.  For almost three decades now, Derek Mooney and his team of experts have been bringing the uplifting and fascinating strains of early-morning birdsong to listeners.

Winner of both the National PPI Radio Award for Innovation and the coveted International Rose d’Or award, the programme has become one of the broadcast highlights of the year, not just in Ireland but right across Europe and beyond. Featuring live birdsong and expert commentary, it offers an unmatched live celebration of our natural heritage.

“Interest in the natural world has never been higher. People have a greater appreciation of our flora and fauna and for the songs of our wild birds” says Derek Mooney.

The dawn chorus is one of the most magical experiences in nature: a multitude of birds of many different species all singing together in harmony as morning breaks and light begins to fill the skies. As our natural world’s most impressive and renowned concert, it is almost as though it has been tailor-made for radio.

International Dawn Chorus Day will take place on Sunday 7th May and this year the Mooney Goes Wild team will be bringing things back home with a celebration of Irish birdsong from midnight through to 7:00am on RTÉ Radio One, in a simulcast with RTÉ Lyric FM.  

“From Kate Bush to Messiaen, from Respighi to Charlie Parker, the song and chatter of birds have always been a huge inspiration to musicians and composers. The sheer variety of bird calls – the cheery gossip of garden visitors,  the exotic and lush swoops of tropical aristocrats, the almost heart-breaking lonesome call of the curlew – these are music in themselves. Our human musical response is an attempt to celebrate our beautiful and precious natural world, and delight in the riches that we are fortunate to live alongside.  How can we not smile when we hear the first stirrings of the birds on an early May morning?” Sinead Wyle Head of RTÉ Lyric FM  

‘Home base’ once again this year will   be BirdWatch Ireland’s Cuskinny Marsh Nature Reserve in Cobh, Co. Cork, where our main presentation team of Derek Mooney, Niall Hatch, Éanna Ní Lamhna and local ornithologist Alan Farrell will introduce the dawn chorus and, while the birdsong builds in real time, explain to listeners what our feathered friends are getting up to as the sun rises.

Across the country, Dr Richard Collins, Eric Dempsey and Terry Flanagan will also bring us the birdsong from their parts of Ireland, as the sun gradually breaks the horizon and the birds begin their performances.

We are also delighted to be partnering once again with our colleagues in BBC Radio Ulster and BBC Radio Wales.

This year’s dawn chorus is about the birds and listeners. We are counting on our listeners to send us their own recordings and live feeds of the birdsong performance happening near them. It could be the sound from a garden, local park or woodland . . . or even just outside the bedroom window.

So, join us on RTÉ Radio One and RTÉ lyric FM from 00:00-0700 on Sunday 7th May for a very special celebration of our wild birds, an exploration of the shared natural heritage and the finest free concert you will hear all year.

Love nature, love the Dawn Chorus!

The 2023 RTÉ All-Ireland Drama Festival

Launches at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre

Drama groups from around the country gathered today at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, for the launch of the 2023 RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival, under the auspices of the Amateur Drama Council of Ireland.

Starting on Thursday, 27 April, and running until Friday 5 May, drama festivals from across the island of Ireland will compete in the All-Ireland deciders, with the presentation of the final awards on Saturday May 6.

Festival Director, Regina Bushell, said: “This is a very special year for the festival as the ADCI, founded in Athlone in 1953, is celebrating its 70th Anniversary. Fittingly, the standard of the plays this year is truly very high, and expectation is building as our groups prepare to perform under the watchful eye of this year’s adjudicator Paula Dempsey. And this year we have the premiere of a brand-new Irish play written by one of the group members, as well as two amateur premieres.”

Dee Forbes, Director-General, RTÉ, said: “With the RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival, RTÉ is proud to foster creativity and acting talent through drama, and to bring the excitement and tension of this unique festival to audiences all over Ireland, through the partnership with RTÉ lyric fm, through RTÉ.ie and our social channels, and through RTÉ Radio 1. We are delighted this year to produce yet another ambitious radio and television campaign that gets to the heart of what make this festival so enduring: the power of drama, of the individual, and of the collective, and the resilience to start again. The spotlight is on Athlone during May, and we will be there”.

The festival also revealed a revamped website at http://www.dramafestival.ie. The official draw for the line-up for the 2023 RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival took place on Monday 10 April.

The 2023 festival sees the return of last year’s winners, Ballyduff Drama Group, presenting an exciting Irish premiere of ‘The Welkin’ by Lucy Kirkwood, while former winners Newpoint Players will present ‘Happy Days’ by Samuel Beckett. Dundalk Theatre Workshop will perform Brian Friel’s masterpiece ‘Faith Healer’, and Thurles Drama Group will present Conor MacPherson’s play, ’The Seafarer’. Former winners Dalkey Players are presenting ‘By the Bog of Cats’, Marina Carr’s play. And the festival will also welcome back former double winners, Prosperous Dramatic Society. Prosperous are performing the amateur premiere of “Oleanna” by David Mamet. Back too are Wexford Drama Group with the amateur premiere of the winner of the 2014 Molière Award for Best Play, Florian Zeller’s “The Father”, alongside Ballyshannon Drama Society with their production of the Pulitzer Prize winning, ‘A Delicate Balance’ by Edward Albee. Butt Drama Circle will return with another premiere, a new three hander Irish play ‘Darkness Echoing’ written by Butt Drama member Shaun Byrne, following on from the success of last year’s ‘An Incident with Dave Cotter’.

This year’s adjudicator Paula Dempsey, is an actor, director and drama adjudicator and holds an MA in Modern Drama Studies from University College Dublin. She has been adjudicating since 2007 and is a member of the Association of Theatre Adjudicators.

Tickets are now on sale and can be booked through the Dean Crowe website at http://www.deancrowetheatre.com/ or at the theatre box office, phone (090) 6492129. Admission €20 (includes a €1 Booking Fee). Concessions are available.

The Athlone Festival will also have a packed programme of fringe events, including fringe highlights the Annual Schools Playwright competition and the Athlone Film Festival. Now in its 10th year the playwright competition attracted entries from TY students from 12 counties. Sponsored again by Athlone Credit Union the awards ceremony takes place on 25 April. Further details are available on our website and social media.

RTÉ is providing extensive coverage of the historic visit by President Biden to Ireland across this week. RTÉ will offer audiences, both at home and abroad, a range of special programmes in addition to detailed news coverage of the first Official Visit by Joe Biden as President of the United States of America.

RTÉ will be at locations in Belfast, Dublin, Louth and Mayo, to provide audiences with coverage of President Biden’s engagements over the course of his four-day visit.

RTÉ.ie and RTÉ News App will cover the official visit with a daily live blog; live video and audio streams; on-demand RTÉ News special programmes and daily picture galleries.

RTÉ One television will produce a number of special programmes along with rolling coverage across One O’Clock News, Nuacht, Six One News, Nine O’Clock News and Prime Time. 

Listeners can follow the President’s visit across the RTÉ Radio 1 and RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta schedule, with live updates, reports and analysis.

On Tuesday 11^th April, RTÉ One’s Nine O’Clock News and Prime Time broadcast live from Belfast, as President Biden arrives on the Island of Ireland.

On Wednesday, 12^th April television coverage on RTÉ One and RTÉ News channel included the address by President Biden to the University of Ulster in Belfast and his visit to Louth. The first of RTÉ’s special programmes, President Biden in Ireland, began on Wednesday at 12.45pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ News Channel.

Further coverage on Thursday will include his visit to Áras an Uachtaráin to meet President Higgins, President Biden’s address to the Houses of the Oireachtas. On Friday 14th April coverage will include President Biden’s visit to Mayo including his remarks in Ballina on Friday evening.

As Ireland’s National Public Service Media Organisation RTÉ is providing international feed TV coverage of the set piece main events of the Official Visit by President Biden to Ireland. The images of Ireland shown in the live and recorded international feed coverage, will be made available free of charge to other Irish broadcasters and global media broadcaster via satellite to be shown worldwide.

RTÉ & ITV Commission Second Series of BAFTA-Nominated Comedy The Dry for RTÉ Television, RTÉ Player and ITVX

Irish viewers embrace The Dry in their droves with almost 600,000 streams on RTÉ Player to date

RTÉ, in partnership with ITV has today announced the commission of a second season of the critically acclaimed comedy-drama The Dry for RTÉ and ITVX, which will be produced by Element Pictures, in association with Fís Eireann/Screen Ireland and ITV Studios.

Award-winning playwright and BAFTA-nominated screenwriter Nancy Harris (Dates) and acclaimed director Paddy Breathnach (Viva, Rosie) will return to helm the second season, which will stream exclusively on RTÉ and ITVX next year. The first season was made available to view for free on ITVX and RTÉ Television last month and is also available to view on RTÉ Player.

Roisin Gallagher will return as recovering alcoholic Shiv Sheridan, alongside regular cast members from the first series. Further casting details will be confirmed in due course.

The second series picks up seven months on from the events of the first, and we now meet the Sheridans in their new normal. To all outward appearances, it seems like the family is relatively content: Shiv’s been sober, celibate, and solvent for 6 months, Ant has hung onto his job at the estate agents and his relationship with Max, and Caroline’s making up for a lost time by shagging everyone she meets on Tinder. So far, so normal… Or is it? After all, how normal is it for 3 grown adults to still be living at home with their parents? And are the Sheridans really happy with this new status quo, or have they just rearranged their dysfunction and found another groove of denial to fit into?

Shiv is determined to get sobriety right this time, to cut the toxic influences out of her life for good. But what if the biggest threat to Shiv’s stability turns out to be closer to home? Giving up alcohol is one thing…but what about giving up your family?

Nana Hughes, Head of Scripted Comedy at ITV said “We are thrilled to be collaborating once again with the extra talented and BAFTA nominated Nancy Harris, Element Pictures, Paddy and the team to return to the Sheridan household for the second season of The Dry, coming to ITVX in 2024.”

Executive Producer, Emma Norton at Element Pictures added “We all fell in love with the Sheridan family in season one and it is such a treat to get to spend more time in their chaotic company. Nancy has a fantastic arc for this season and Paddy is returning, with our wonderful Irish cast and crew, to bring this next chapter to life.”

Screenwriter Nancy Harris said “I’m so thrilled about this second season of The Dry and to be getting to bring more of the Sheridans back to the screen. It’s an absolute joy to be back working with this incredible ensemble cast, and director Paddy Breathnach and I’m excited about where the show is going to go this season. The characters are all deepening and developing and they all have challenges – it’s going to be quite the rollercoaster, and not just for those who are trying to stay sober…”

Dermot Horan, Director of Acquisitions & Co-Productions for RTÉ comments “The first season of The Dry really resonated with our audiences. We always felt that there were loads more stories to tell about the various members of the Sheridan family. So, we are delighted that Nancy, Paddy and the Element team are back to bring us another series. We are also really pleased to be working with our local partners, Screen Ireland and the BAI Sound and Vision Scheme, and our international ones, ITVX and ITV Studios, who are bringing this very local Irish story to UK and global audiences. The Dry has reached almost 600,000 views on RTÉ Player to date, which is a fantastic accomplishment for local Irish drama.”

Emma Norton, Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe will serve as executive producers for Element Pictures, alongside Nancy Harris and Paddy Breathnach. ITV Studios is handling global distribution for THE DRY.

RTÉ has today announced a diverse array of special programming about the Irish Civil War and the revolutionary period in Ireland that will be available across television, radio and online. As part of its continuing commemoration of the Decade of Centenaries, RTÉ will mark significant moments in modern Irish history with broadcasts between April and June to reflect on Ireland’s past and how that past has determined the shape of our country today.

Coverage on RTÉ will include a powerful new series featuring fresh testimonies of family members of some of those who were involved in the Civil War, a special documentary looking at the role played by the GAA at the time, Michael Portillo examining the Civil War period through British State Papers and Tony Connelly’s personal family story of one of his grandfathers who served in the RIC. Coverage also includes a Nationwide special on the death of IRA leader Liam Lynch, special broadcasts on RTÉ Radio 1’s Morning Ireland and The History Show, in addition, to live coverage of the State Commemoration of the 1916 Rising. 

This evening, Wednesday 5^th April will open the next chapter of RTÉ content as Nationwide presents a special programme that looks at the killing of the IRA leader Liam Lynch. The Civil War, which had cost the lives of some 2,000 people, was about to come to an end. Donal Byrne reflects on the final days of that war, the losses on both sides and how the trauma of that has endured for many families.

Jim Jennings, Director of Content RTÉ, said: “For the last decade, RTÉ has delivered a full and varied slate of content to commemorate key moments in the history of our country. Working with a number of different partners, we are proud to now launch a further chapter in the telling of the complicated story of modern Ireland from numerous perspectives.”

RTÉ Radio 1’s Morning Ireland, will host a live programme from Tipperary on Easter Monday, 10 April, airing exactly 100 years to the day since Liam Lynch’s killing. This broadcast will also be simulcast on the RTÉ News Channel and accompanied by a two-part digital article series about the last days of Liam Lynch published on rte.ie/news over Easter weekend.

On Easter Sunday 9th April, the RTÉ News channel and RTE.ie will carry live coverage of the State Commemoration of the 1916 Rising. The annual commemoration, which will be held live in front of the GPO in O’Connell Street, Dublin, will involve military honours, prayers of remembrance, a reading of the Proclamation and the laying of a wreath by the President.
 
A two-part television documentary series, The Silent Civil War, will begin on RTÉ One and the RTÉ Player on Wednesday 26th April. Based on the testimonies of family members of 80 of those who were involved in the Civil War, the series is produced in association with the National Folklore Collection in UCD and RTÉ Archives.

Over two parts, a team of collectors, researchers and historians gather to record memories of the Civil War that were passed on through families and communities throughout Ireland. The group unexpectedly uncovers a trove of audio recordings with men and women central to the revolutionary period in Irish history; these tapes have remained buried in an attic in the United States for fifty years.

In Taking Sides: Britain and the Civil War, Michael Portillo returns with an authored documentary on Wednesday 10^th May, that uses British state papers to shed fresh light on key events and personalities during the Civil War period in Ireland.

Ré Réabhlóide: CLG agus Cogadh na gCarad sees presenter Gráinne McElwain explore the role played by the Gaelic Athletic Association during the Civil War period in Ireland and is broadcast on Thursday 11^th May. 

Tony Connelly: A Hidden History on Monday June 12th, RTÉ One is an intimate first-person account by RTÉ’s Europe Editor, Tony Connelly, that explores the life and career of one of his grandfathers, Michael Connelly, who served in both the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

RTÉ Radio 1 and RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta will continue to mark the anniversaries of the Civil War in detail as part of their regular schedules. Specifically, The History Show will continue to cover this period up to the end of its current run, on April 30^th and again, once it returns for a new series later in the Autumn.

A catalogue of history-based dramas and documentaries is available on RTÉ Player, among them the award-winning Bloody Sunday, 1920, Beyond the Bullets: Real Life During the Civil War, Treaty Live, Election ’18, The Irish Revolution (narrated by Cillian Murphy), The Irish Civil War (featuring Brendan Gleeson), Rebellion and Resistance.

RTE.ie/history will continue to host a wide range of content relevant to this period. The site will launch a special new index on April 20th to accompany The Silent Civil War series. Since 2022, RTE.ie/history’s Civil War project has offered an array of essays on all aspects of the conflict by expert historians from Ireland and elsewhere. On 24th May, The Civil War will conclude with a final index marking the centenary of the end of hostilities, with a series of pieces by expert historians on both the IRA decision to cease operations, and the wide-ranging consequences of the conflict itself.

The Silent Civil War, Beyond the Bullets: Real Life During the Civil War and the Civil War Project are supported by a partnership between RTÉ and, the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media under the Decade of Centenaries Programme, 2012 – 2023’.