Factual

As the pandemic hit, production teams across RTÉ and the independent sector responded admirably to the challenges that arose, introducing new ways of working to continue to deliver high-quality programmes and to develop brand-new programmes to meet changing audience needs. Audiences responded positively and in huge numbers to both types of output.

Supporting, Nurturing, Remembering

RTÉ commissioned two series in the early days of the first lockdown, the first of which, Ireland on Call, came live twice a week from the Department of Health. Presented by Katie Hannon and Brendan Courtney, Ireland on Call was a platform for reliable information and a showcase for the best of community response to the pandemic. Operation Transformation: Keeping Well Apart launched in April 2020 and provided up-to-date public health information as it followed several households navigating the challenges of the first lockdown. In responding to the need for access to religious services, RTÉ worked with ChurchServices.tv to provide daily live-streamed Mass through the RTÉ News channel. With You in Spirit, a series of daily short films that broadcast on the RTÉ News channel, offered spiritual guidance for those of minority faiths throughout the pandemic. RTÉ also worked closely with the Muslim community to provide coverage of the historic Eid celebrations from Croke Park, and provided an appropriate forum for remembering those who died during the pandemic with its Ireland Remembers series.

Those who died in the lockdown were also featured in Love and Loss in a Pandemic, a one-off documentary that gave a platform for those recently bereaved to fondly remember their loved ones. Another one-off documentary, A Big Week in September, documented the national effort that was required to get the country’s schoolchildren back to school. The Factual team also helped encompass the experience of 2020 with its Letters from Lockdown series, on RTÉ Player and social media channels. The story of 100-year-old Margaret Lynch, who wrote a lockdown letter to her newborn great-grandson, captured the imagination of many, with over 2 million views across platforms.

The pandemic was also the trigger for three other quick-turnaround commissions. Back to Business offered advice to businesses across the country as they prepared to reopen their doors; Gardening Together reflected the national mood for gardening that lockdown and the good weather had brought; and Summer at Seven provided a great on-air gateway into the summer.

Elsewhere, RTÉ continued to premiere more documentary series in the RTÉ One schedule. Redress: Breaking the Silence broadcast on consecutive nights in February 2020 to widespread acclaim. It was followed by The Boys in Green and Burnt by the Sun, both two-part series, which broadcast to large audiences. At the end of the year, another landmark series, The Hunger, brought a definitive telling of the story of the Irish famine to television audiences for the first time.

New Faces, New Voices

Alongside many returning favourites, our push for original indigenous formats centred around exciting new talent. The Style Counsellors, fronted by Instagram fashion gurus Eileen Smith and Suzanne Jackson, had a great response. Cheap Irish Homes brought social media star Maggie Molloy to Irish television audiences for the first time. Familiar faces were the subject matter of another fresh format that premiered in the year – Keys to My Life saw six celebrities join Brendan Courtney as they delved into their own life stories through the prism of all the homes they had lived in. It too gained a very positive response from our audience.

The Decade of Centenaries continued to be a prominent feature of our history output. Cogadh ar Mhná gave a chilling insight into the atrocities and sexual violence perpetrated by all sides on women throughout Ireland’s revolutionary decade, while 74 Days: The Hunger Strike of Terence MacSwiney outlined the medical and psychological effects of hunger strike on an individual as well as explaining its use as a weapon of insurgency. One of the most prominent centenaries of the year was delicately handled in Bloody Sunday 1920, an accomplished documentary that made room for the nuance that surrounds the event as well as the ripples that extend into the current generations.

Christy Ring – Man and Ball marked the centenary of the birth of one of Ireland’s finest ever hurlers. An Taoiseach marked the occasion with a special ceremony at Cork City Hall, which was illuminated with pictures from the programme. Sport of a different kind featured in The John Delaney Story, a one-off documentary on the changing fortunes of the former head of the FAI.