Gráinne Seoige is back on screens hosting Virgin Media's first Irish language dating show, Grá ar an Trá - is it Ireland's answer to Love Island?
One of the country’s most versatile presenters, Gráinne Seoige has frequently moved between TG4, RTÉ, Virgin Media and Sky in her 25-year career, working on everything from afternoon TV to Crimecall to reporting from warzones in Afghanistan - a range not many presenters can boast of.
Speaking to the press ahead of the launch of Virgin Media's new season, Seoige is visibly excited about Grá ar an Trá [Love on the Beach] and a return to making new formats for the broadcaster.
Referencing her seven-year stint as a news anchor at the station Seoige said: "It has felt like coming home – I spent a long time here."
It's no surprise, having hosted five different programmes for RTÉ within the space of a year ten years ago, that the recent crisis becomes part of our conversation. However, Seoige deftly steers away from the topic – but more on that later.
First - Grá Ar An Trá, which is billed as "the Gaeltacht’s answer to Love Island".
Filmed in Waterford in May, the show sees Seoige, along with co-presenters James Kavanagh and Síomha Ní Ruairc, at the helm as ten singletons head to the Gaeltacht, brushing up on their cúpla focal while also looking for love.
The contestants, some of whom are confident Irish speakers while others are improvers, live in the "Love Teach", where cameras are filming 24 hours a day as the singletons try to find a romantic connection.
In between all the flirting, there’ll be Irish language challenges in which they’ll compete to be crowned the "couple with the most focail" and walk away with the grand prize of €10,000.
Seoige is passionate about what a deal it is to be making an Irish-language dating show for Virgin Media and how success stories like An Cailín Ciúin are chipping away at the "hang-ups" previous generations have had about the language – as well as proving that it can be commercially viable.
She said: "Various things… have helped change people’s opinions towards the Irish language, who maybe may not have bought into it before that.
"An Cailin Ciúin being nominated for an Oscar, and not just nominated - being genuinely popular – people saw it, people made an effort to see it, people really liked it, all over the world. I think it showed that whatever old vestiges or image of the language are out there – not positive ones - I think everything that’s happening is sort of helping put those behind us."
Seoige continued: "Grá ar an Trá will also do that. We have stunning examples of Irish youth on the show, between 20 and 29. Everyone is fit, well-heeled, well-educated, talented, successful, broadminded… they’re a wonderful example of who we’re producing as a nation."
She added: "They either all speak [Irish] or want to learn it, and that positivity really touched me when filming."
Seoige’s own love life has caused much curiosity since she burst onto the scene in 1996 aged 21, reading the first late-night news bulletin on the launch night of Teilifís na Gaeilge [now TG4], garnering many fans for both herself and new enthusiasts of the Irish language.
So naturally, as she fronts a brand new dating show, the topic of her own dating experiences comes up – including what advice she'd give to singletons, now that she is happily married.
She responded by saying that millennials and Gen Z don't need dating advice, bar: "Get out there. Shyness is not a thing that really exists anymore or any of that residual shame that other generations might have grown up with.
"They [Gen Z / millennials] are very able to communicate, very able to put forward their opinions, and they have a confidence and an inner ability to get their point of view across.
"I think that’s really refreshing… I was so impressed."
Seoige married former rugby coach Leon Jordaan in 2019 and had based herself in Pretoria, South Africa for several years prior to that.
Not quite ready to let her presenting duties go, she continued flying back to Ireland for two years to present RTÉ's Crimecall. When she eventually left the show in 2016, it seemed as though she had left the media and Ireland behind for good.
Then, in 2020, the pair returned to Seoige's native Galway to really settle down – right in the throes of Covid-19 lockdown.
The presenter says she is both "fortunate" and "grateful" to have landed high-profile TV presenting gigs after the spell away. "It was wonderful to come back. During lockdown, I was doing The Six O’Clock Show – a very pared-back version of it.
"Lockdown was a leveller. We had Angelina Jolie live on Zoom on the show - major Hollywood stars. All of a sudden, everyone was accessible to the same level."
Acknowledging the strangeness of the period, she said taking part in the 2022 season of Dancing with The Stars "let people know I was back home for good."
But back to dating – was she a fan of TV dating shows before signing up for Grá ar an Trá? Has she any guilty pleasures? "I do love Love Island. I’ve been sitting with Greg [O’Shea] all summer on The Six O’Clock show and he’s obviously the most successful Irish representative on that show that has ever existed, having won it, and I can see why when you work with him - he’s so charming and personable.
"Himself and Maura [Higgins] walked into that show that year and caused a sensation, and they are still working and doing really, really well."
Comparisons between Love Island and Grá ar an Trá are natural – both are dating shows, involving people in their 20s living in each other's pockets and round-the-clock filming.
When asked about the "raunch factor" on the show and if it’s comparable to Love Island in that way, she said that it would be ok to watch it with your parents, "without too much embarrassment".
So, does Grá ar an Trá have sex appeal? "Love Island is centred around a swimming pool. That’s not what Grá ar an Tra is about at all. It is very different to that.
"There is a small hot tub outside and they do climb into it," she laughed, "But that’s not what the central setting is. It’s the house itself and it’s the garden – and then it’s the challenges and the activities they do.
"We did Irish dancing with them, we did a sports day on the beach – they had lots of different activities to do that would be uniquely Irish and would reflect our upbringing here in this country.
"It’s not really trying to ape other dating shows… they’re not covering each other with oil! [But] I don’t think it lacks anything for that."
Asked about the difference between working for RTÉ and for Virgin Media, the ever-consummate professional said she enjoys the "light approach" Virgin Media has when it comes to making programmes, as well as being "flexible" and "agile" regarding getting stuff done.
So the elephant in the room - what of the current RTÉ debacle?
"I wish Ryan Tubridy all the best and good luck and good fortune" but said she preferred not to comment further.
Grá ar an Trá will air on Virgin Media, starting in September.
