Shifting demographics transforming the Ireland we thought we knew
TV WEEK (Wednesday 4th to Tuesday 11th)
TOP SPECIALS
Rise Of The Rockstar Chef (BBC 2, Thursday 5th, 9pm)
The series charts the careers, fierce rivalries, and impact of three of the world’s most influential culinary figures: Marco Pierre White, Gordon Ramsey and Heston Blumenthal. It explores how the trio tore up traditional fine-dining rules and turned chefs into global celebrities, featuring candid interviews and an historic reunion where the three rivals come back together after decades apart.
Unreported World: South Africa’s Whistleblower Hitmen (CH4, Friday 6th, 7.30pm)
South Africa faces a severe crisis regarding the targeted assassination of whistleblowers, where hired hitmen carry out contract killings linked to state and municipal corruption, while the masterminds who order and finance them frequently evade prosecution. Babita Deokaran, a senior Health Department accountant, was gunned down outside her Johannesburg home after flagging millions in suspicious payments.
Ireland’s Fittest Family (RTÉ 1, Sunday 8th, 6.30pm)
Back with a new series, and this year everything has been turned up a notch. Coaches Anna Geary, Donncha O’Callaghan, Davy Fitzgerald, Ellen Keane, Michael Darragh MacAuley and reigning champ Andrew Trimble take their teams to locations including Haulbowline Navy Base, the deadly bogs of Hell and Back in Wicklow and the majestic setting of Avondale House and its breathtaking Treetop Walk.
Busted (RTÉ 1, Monday 9th, 9.35pm)
This three-part documentary series, with co-operation for the first time from Defence Forces, gardaí and Customs, charts some of the most high-profile and bizarre drug seizures, from the elite Army Ranger Wing boarding a cargo ship in the high seas to tales of drug-filled torpedoes and submarines crossing the Atlantic, and how 1.5 tonnes of cocaine was found floating in a sleepy Cork bay – the inspiration behind The Young Offenders.
WATCH OF THE WEEK
Ireland’s Population Crash (RTÉ 1, Wednesday 4th, 9.35pm)
Ireland is on the brink of a population crash. With collapsing birth rates and the fastest ageing population in Europe, we are hurtling into an uncertain future. What are the hidden forces behind the shifting demographics that are transforming the Ireland we thought we knew, and what does it mean for the generations to come? From healthcare to housing, AI to immigration, what happens to a nation when it stops having babies?
BEST FILMS
Joyride (RTÉ 2, Friday 6th, 9.35pm)
When 12-year-old Mully steals a taxi, he is shocked to find a woman, Joy (Olivia Colman), in the back seat with the baby she has reluctantly decided to give away to a friend. This road/chase drama-comedy follows a complicated middle-aged mother and a troubled adolescent on a journey across Ireland, dealing with friendship, love and learning.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (BBC 2, Friday 6th, 10pm)
Steve Martin is a nervous control freak trying to get home to Chicago to spend Thanksgiving with his wife and kids – only to find his flight is rerouted to a distant city in Kansas because of a freak snowstorm. A bad situation is made worse when he’s forced to bunk up with talkative slob John Candy. It’s a match made in holiday hell.
Bone Tomahawk (Film4, Friday 6th, 12.20am)
A tough and ruthless Old West tale follows sheriff (Kurt Russell), his deputy (Richard Jenkins), a gunslinger (Matthew Fox), and a cowboy (Patrick Wilson) embarking on a mission to rescue three innocents from a savage group of cave dwellers. Violent but engrossing.
CLASSIC MOVIE
Public Enemies (Film4, Thursday 5th, 12.35am)
Johnny Depp plays depression-era bank robber John Dillinger, whose criminal audacity endeared him to America’s downtrodden public, but he was also a thorn in the side of J Edgar Hoover and the fledgling FBI. Desperate to capture the elusive outlaw, Hoover makes Dillinger his first Public Enemy Number One and assigns his top agent, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), the task of bringing him, in dead or alive.
KIDS STUFF
Lynley (RTÉ 1, Wednesday 4th, 1.35pm)
Detective drama based on Elizabeth George’s novels, starring Leo Suter and Sofia Barclay. Working class East Anglian local DS Barbara Havers is paired with incoming Oxford graduate DI Thomas Lynley to solve the murder of a wealthy landowner. Suspects include members of his own family and those connected to his valuable collection of Roman antiquities.
A Ring And A Prayer (RTÉ 1, Friday 6th, 8pm)
Across six episodes, the series follow 12 couples representing nine different nationalities as they navigate the intricate and sometimes stressful preparations leading up to their wedding days. Whether the couples are devoutly religious, culturally lapsed, or entirely non-theistic, official census data reveals that 23.3% of the Irish population was born outside of Ireland, and today, one in four marriages across the country involves at least one non-Irish national.
ON DEMAND
12 12 12 (Apple TV)
Each episode of unfolds across three timelines of a heist: the 12 months of planning, the 12 hours of the heist, and the 12 days after. The series follows a disgraced FBI agent (Anthony Mackie) and an American career criminal (Jamie Dornan) as they play a zero-sum game of cat and mouse across Europe culminating in an epic raid on a bank deep beneath the streets of Zurich.
Black Doves (Netflix)
In season two, Helen (Keira Knightley) is still betraying her nation’s secrets to the covert organisation she serves: the Black Doves. But with her husband preparing to become Prime Minister, she is walking a more treacherous line than ever, and is again reunited with Sam (Ben Whishaw) – a once high-end triggerman is now reduced to lonely drinks in Soho bars and low-rate hits.
Being Heumann (Apple TV)
The authorities wouldn’t take disabled Judy Heumann’s phone calls, so she took their building. In 1977, a young disabled woman joined by a scrappy coalition of outsiders decide they’ve had enough. What begins as one impulsive act becomes the longest occupation of a federal building in American history, as hundreds spontaneously seize government offices and refuse to leave.
SPORTS CENTRE
The Greatest (Amazon Prime)
An intimate exploration of the incomparable life of the boxing champion, humanitarian, and global icon, Muhammad Ali. The first authorised series about his life offers unprecedented access, going beyond the amazing victories and defeats that made Ali a legend, in and out of the ring. The world remembers an icon, and The Greatest delves behind what made the man, the husband, the father and son.