Ahead of the arrival of The Traitors Ireland on RTÉ One, John Byrne travels to Slane Castle to check out the show's famous base and meet its host, Siobhán McSweeney.
The day didn’t start well. Being a public transport user, the local DART train that was to take me from home in Portmarnock to Sydney Parade on Dublin's south side never materialised, and it was way too long before the next train was due to turn up.
If it turned up at all.
As a result, I was probably going to miss the special bus from RTÉ HQ that was bringing a selection of Irish journalists to what was then the secret location of The Traitors Ireland.
I rang the RTÉ Press Office person who was running the press trip to explain my perilous situation. Could the bus wait for me? "There’s no way you’ll make the bus," I was told. "We have to be at the destination by a certain time as they’re in the middle of filming."
I replied by saying there was no need to worry, a quick call home and I’ll get a lift up in the family car.
"But you don’t know where the secret location is?"
"And yet I do. This is Ireland."
Let’s face it: Ireland is a small country and its people see things. And when people see things, they talk to friends and family about them. They tell each other not to tell anyone else, but no one pays a blind bit of attention to that. "I won’t say a word" covers an awful lot of bases.
That way everyone feels they’re just telling one or two people rather than spreading a tale around town. And beyond.
Naturally enough, probably half the population of Slane knew what was going on in the local castle before anyone outside those involved with the show. The Traitors Ireland was coming to the banks of the Boyne.
And naturally, the story leaked down to nearby Dublin. Secret location? Yeah, right!
And there’s a thing. That just sums up Ireland and explains why The Traitors Ireland is going to be the best fun you're going to have on the sofa either side of summer. This show was made for the Irish and the Irish were made for this show.
Everybody wants to know what everyone else is doing, and there are very few things in Irish life that are more fun than talking about people behind their backs.
And that’s just for starters.
I’ll leave it there as I’ve no desire to offend and - more importantly - I’ve a feature article to finish . . .
After getting a lift up to Shane, I met up with the bus and we completed the final lap to Slane Castle as the Press Office had intended.
The bus was stopped by security at the entrance to the Castle grounds - this was The Traitors Ireland equivalent of Checkpoint Charlie. And when we reached the castle, there was a Traitors flag flying just at the front door.
Suddenly, we were on a TV set. The TV set of that show.
It was weird looking down the slope to the Boyne River, the setting of so many legendary concerts, and seeing it bereft of bodies. But I didn’t stare for long. We’d a castle interior to explore.
And Siobhán McSweeney to talk to, about her pivotal role as the host of The Traitors Ireland.
We met up with her after the set visit, as she’s been out with the show’s contestants on one of the regular tasks, where they bond, earn money - and wonder who the traitors are in their midst.
"I presume, I'm not spoiling anything by saying where it has been filmed," the former Derry Girls star says, with a knowing smile, when asked about making her new show as Irish as possible. "You’ve been there yourself."
"The immersion is on, the cupla focal is on," she adds, getting all gaelic about the show. "This is a franchise, but this is the Irish version. Make no mistake, this will be the Irish version. The format is universal, but the content and the specificity of each aspect of it will be incredibly Irish.
"And that was one of the things that I spoke about really early on. I wanted that iconography to be uniquely Irish. Otherwise, what's the point?"
The production takes about a month to complete and results in 12 hours of unmissable telly. If you’ve seen the UK, American and Australian versions, they’re all quite different - though, also, very similar.
By her very nature, Siobhán will be a very different host in comparison with her international predecessors - and she's adamant that The Traitors Ireland will come tinged in green, white and orange.
"We're a strange little island on the edge of the Atlantic," she says. "We've managed to resist an awful lot. It would be very strange to just make us banal. We are who we are, and that should be celebrated. That’s our intention.
"I think, so much of this show has got to do with the visual as much as anything. So we're using as much Irish, Celtic, Gaelic iconography as we can. There's plenty. There's a rich history that we can we can dig into."
And history's something that Slane Castle is also steeped in as it was built back in the 18th century, long before U2 or even Bob Dylan were around.
It’s the ideal setting for this show, everyone agrees, as show producer Darren Smith (of Kite Productions) leads us to a basement cellar deep in the bowels of the castle, which has me thinking of dungeons and imprisonment and the like. A place where traitors could easily dwell.
Indeed, it’s where The Traitors Ireland group of traitors assemble for their nightly conclave.
It’s also a place where spiders dwell. A grinning Darren Smith points out that, as the cellar hadn’t been used in years, it was infested by spiders. That's was as in they're no longer there. But fear not, arachnid lovers, they brought in a specialist to rehouse them elsewhere. Maybe that former Crown paint warehouse in Coolock?
There’s a very modern security zone like what you’d see at an airport or a museum, that leads to the production area, the behind-the-scenes bit viewers never see, housing a bank of TV screens linked to hidden cameras dotted around the various parts of the set.
And it also houses a pile of production staff, all working away as we pass through. "There’s over 150 people involved in the show," says Darren Smith, as we were greeted with grins, waves and hellos. This is a happy set - but a serious operation. Well, it is a serious show.
Those hidden cameras will capture the more personal moments, when the contestants are talking amongst themselves in groups of two, three or more and trying to figure out the traitors in their midst.
Even Siobhán McSweeney doesn’t know what subterfuge may be going on when she’s not around, and the hidden cameras are rolling. She's as curious as anyone else about the conniving carry-on at the castle.
"The thing is, you have to remember, I am not there all the time," she says. "I’m looking forward to seeing the show when it comes out as well. There’s some stuff I'm missing out on, you know - they're being filmed a lot there."
Siobhán also freely admits experiencing a personal sense of trepidation when taking on the role of show host. "But thankfully, I am surrounded by the most extraordinary production team," she notes. "They're very, very wise and sound and well able women who are able to advise me on everything."
And she’s right about the female body count. The Traitors Ireland team is about 90% non-male. The anti-woke mob won’t like that. Anyway, back to Siobhán's giddy anticipation.
"It's really nerve-racking," she admits, while noting the depth of personality that the likes of hosts Claudia Winkelman and Alan Cumming have brought to the UK and US versions of The Traitors.
"It's, I feel, a huge responsibility, not only to the show, but like, you know, it'll be the Irish people watching it. It's all right to mess up abroad," she adds, presumably, tongue-in-cheek. "You don't want to mess up at home.
"And I don't want to mess up at home, and I know that Irish audiences are very astute, very literate in every sense. So you don't want to do a half-assed job, really.
"So yes, I am nervous, and that's why you're going to see my hand shake, because I'm lifting the 50th cup of cup of tea that I've had today. Yeah, there is a huge legacy with this, isn't there? Which is extraordinary, considering it's a relatively new show.
"Isn't that amazing?"
Slane Castle operates almost like a prison during the filming of the show. As well as the two security stops on the way in, the production goes in a circular, anticlockwise motion throughout the ground level of the castle, which remains home to the Mount Charles family.
Talking of the Mount Charleses, we were there shortly before the great Lord Henry passed away, but on the day we were greeted by his son, and current owner, Alex, as he came down the stairs with a wave and a smile and we paused for a brief chat.
He's the spit of the da. And effortlessly debonair.
Having gigs and the like there have obviously helped to maintain what's a pretty massive piece of property and, as he points out, "put Slane and Ireland on the map."
Asked about the imposition of having The Traitors Ireland filming at what's his family home, Alex explains: "We’re still living on the top floor. They’ve been great to work with though, and living in the middle of a TV set is unreal."
As we continue through the castle, we see the various places where the contestants will meet to eat, drink and backstab each other. There’s the green-walled kitchen with a big table in the middle, ideal for congregating and speculating. "We let the the game get under their skin," says Darren Smith.
Then it’s on to the lounge room, where U2 recorded The Unforgettable Fire album 40 or so years before. There’s also a library room with several sofas, while the entrance hall of Slane Castle has been transformed into a breakfast room, where the contestants find out over corn flakes if another faithful has made an overnight exit at the behest of the traitors.
Best of all is the room with The Round Table, where the host activates the initial traitors, and the Banishment ceremony takes place. That’s when the contestants discuss, and eventually vote to evict one of their own whom they believe to be a traitor.
It’s going to be great craic watching and listening to Irish folk doing their best - and worst - on this show. At the end of the day, this is all about the way the contestants put their collective stamp on The Traitors Ireland.
"I'm an internationalist," Siobhán says when asked about the peculiarly Irish traits and social habits on display here. "I don't believe that countries have a native personality or something.
"But it's still very interesting to know what is unique about this one versus the Australian one, versus the American one. So I don't know yet, is the is the short answer.
"Do you know what?" she adds, with a glint in her eye and a cheeky Siobhán McSweeney grin that we'll be seeing a lot of over the coming days. "Have a watch and tell me what you think. . ."
The Traitors Ireland begins on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player on Sunday August 31
