About RTÉ Religious Programmes

"The Meaning of Life" with Gay Byrne and Colin Farrell

Throughout the year, RTÉ Religious Programmes seek to reflect the full diversity of religious practice and experience in Ireland. Through a mixture of outside broadcasts and Masses and Services from the RTÉ studios in Dublin, we aim to include Christian worship from different communities and denominations all over the country. We also hope to mark at least some of the significant festivals of other faiths and to reflect their place in today's Ireland.

If you have comments on the site or would like to contact the Editor of RTE Religious Programmes, please send me an email at roger.childs@rte.ie

Our Service on Sunday on 31 January will be an ecumenical service, led by Pastor Tunde Adebayo-Oke. If you can't watch it live on RTE One, at 11.15am, you can see it later on the RTÉ player (www.rte.ie/player) or on this site.

On Monday 21st September, we launched the latest version of The Angelus. A uniquely Irish broadcasting tradition, the Angelus has been broadcast by RTE since 1950. Rooted in the scriptural account of the Annunciation, what started as a pause for Christian prayer is now valued by people of many faiths and none as a welcome moment for reflection and peace in the flurry of contemporary life. We hope that our seven new short films reflect that, offering seven snapshots of people finding space for contemplation in the bustle of today's Ireland. And yes, there will still be a bell - the Angelus chimes of Dublin's Pro-Cathedral, which have been used since the beginning, at the suggestion of the former Archbishop of Dublin, John McQuaid.

The Jewish New Year Festival of Rosh Hashanah, September 18 to nightfall on September 20, was marked by RTE with a portrait of Dublin's Jewish community: Autumn Blooms For Rosh Hashanah. The title comes from the name of Dublin's most famous Jew, Leopold Bloom - a fictional character in a very real and vivid landscape, in James Joyce's Ulysses. Today, through prosperity and emigration, that community has shrunk from several thousand members to just a few hundred. Yet, as they reveal, today's "Blooms" still find much to celebrate in their faith and culture. You can watch the film again, below.

We're also approaching Eid, the feast that marks the end of Ramadan, the Muslim month of prayer and fasting, when, tradition has it, the gates of heaven are open and the gates of heaven are closed. On Sunday 20th September, at 1735, on RTÉ One our short film, Ramadan: Hungry For God explores how Ireland's Shia community marks the season, ironically finding great nourishment in their fasting and a renewed sense of neighbourliness. If you don't manage to catch that on TV, you can watch it next week in the space below. And for more information about Islam, you can follow the links on the right of this page to other related RTE output.

Also online, you can catch up with any of the recent series, The Meaning of Life with Gay Byrne, which features interviews with Colin Farrell, Gerry Adams, Maeve Binchy, Sinead O'Connor and Neil Jordan about how her life has shaped, and been shaped by, their religious beliefs and values. You can watch them at www.rte.ie/tv/meaningoflife

You can also watch previous episodes of Joe Duffy's Spirit Level (www.rte.ie/tv/spiritlevel) , our religious magazine, which will next air on RTE One,on Sunday 31 January 2010 at 5.15 pm.

Keep an eye out, too, for iWitness, our nightly reflection slot, which tries to capture the spirit of today's ireland, one voice and one spirit at a time: www.rte.ie/tv/iwitness