RTÉ Documentaries

A portrait of the musician, described by one of his fellow members in the Dubliners as the 'mortar between the bricks' of the folk band. Featuring rare archive footage.

Stress and aggression are commonplace on Irish roads. From the simple beep of a horn to all-out altercations, bad manners and even road rage play out almost every day on Irish streets. Cars, trucks, bicycles, buses and pedestrians are fighting their corner just travelling through the day. Financial stresses, early commutes, aging vehicles and pressurised roads all add to the congestion. Mean Streets hits the tarmac to look at the current conflicts in daily traffic.

Ireland is back on track. After seven hard years, the economy is starting to move again. Unemployment is down, growth forecasts are up and even construction is kicking off. In Dublin, the signs are obvious - the city is buzzing again. But travel outside of the capital and the picture looks very different. Rural Ireland is still reeling after the crash. Emigration and unemployment have hit communities hard and the evidence of a two-speed recovery is plain to see.

In this heartbreaking story of bravery, tragic loss and forgotten history, RTÉ's Political Correspondent David Davin-Power returns to that rural Turkish peninsula of Gallipoli where is own grandfather fought and which claimed the lives of some 3,000 Irishmen. With the help of historians and relatives of soldiers, he tells the story of this brutal battle and disastrous campaign from the Irish perspective one hundred years on.

Four years after the Titanic sank, the world was rocked once more by the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915. This time it wasn't an iceberg that was to blame rather a German U-boat that torpedoed the ocean liner 11 miles off the southern coast of Ireland. It resulted in the deaths of 1,198 passengers and crew and was a key factor in the US's entry into the First World War in 1917. The events of that day are brought to life in this documentary using archive footage, photographs, documents, dramatic reconstructions and expert opinion by marine historians, as well as first-hand testimonies by survivors and the submarine captain.

Collusion is a special feature length television documentary commissioned and funded by RTÉ. In a first television interview, a member of the gang linked to the Dublin Monaghan bombs and many other atrocities reveals that their intent was to foment a civil war - and in that event, they were confident they could "crush the other side". Taoisigh Jack Lynch and Liam Cosgrave were met with flat denials when they raised collusion with their British counterparts. The film will reveal that the British were well aware of it.

With access to the Cochlear Implant Unit of Dublin's Beaumont hospital, this film documents a journey from a world of total silence to one filled with sound. Filmed over nine months, cameras follow Dr Laura Viani and four of her patients as they receive electronic surgical implants which they hope will profoundly change their lives, including Richard Cantwell from Dublin, whose progressive hearing loss has robbed him of his lifetime passion for music.

Bram Stoker agus Dracula looks at the remarkable life of Dublin-born Bram Stoker, and the extent to which his Irish background contributed to the creation of Dracula, one of the most recognisable fictional characters in world literature. Whilst the vampire figure was, already, a centuries old folklore staple and had even appeared in print - Sheridan LeFanu's gothic fantasy Carmilla (1872), for example - it was the May 1897 publication of Dracula that would introduce the public to the character of Count Dracula and establish many of the tropes of fantasy and horror fiction. The character would soon transcend the world of genre fiction and become an enduring icon of popular culture.

The case of Irish nanny Aisling Brady McCarthy, who spent two years in a US prison awaiting trial accused of killing a child in her care, before the prosecution was dropped.

Donal Óg Cusack takes stock of gay rights, both at home and abroad, and asks how far we have travelled from the days when being gay was effectively against the law in Ireland. He talks to sports people about coming out, and interviews an 'ex-gay' man who claims he has been cured of his homosexuality.

Documentary exploring Ireland's relationship with former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who died in April 2013, including her professional dealings with former taoisigh.

Narrated by Oscar-winning actor Jeremy Irons, The Genius of George Boole assembles academics and industry leaders from across the globe to explore the life and importance of one of the world’s greatest unsung heroes.

This is the story of how one man’s passion for one of Ireland’s greatest artists shaped the lives of his young family, in particular that of his daughter Siún, and her efforts to authenticate his legacy twenty years after her father’s death. This is the story of how one man’s passion for one of Ireland’s greatest artists shaped the lives of his young family, in particular that of his daughter Siún, and her efforts to authenticate his legacy twenty years after her father’s death. Michael O’Connor was an art collector who spent his life obsessing about the Irish artist Roderic O’Conor. He came across a folio at a sale of work in Meath in the late 80’s that he believed was painted by O’Conor. The collection comprised of 43 paintings, all unsigned in the conventional sense. He purchased them eagerly and these paintings would become the centre of Michael’s obsessive behaviour. He set out on the long and complicated path of authenticating the works with a view to creating a permanent exhibition dedicated to O’Conor. Michael O’Connor died in 1995 and never fulfilled his life’s ambition. Now, twenty years on, having survived her upbringing, Michael’s daughter, Siún, has decided to finish her father’s work and open up his research and legacy to see whether these paintings are in fact what he believed they were. Did the great man himself paint them or are they even attributed to him? They have acted like shadows throughout her life, but it is time to uncover what it is her father saw. Siún’s father kept detailed notes on the collection, an extensive portfolio of letters and correspondence with art experts and historians, along with photographs and X-rays of the paintings. He was engaged in an extensive effort to authenticate them before he died. This documentary follows Siún as she picks up where her father left off. As she works through the authentication process, she is re-introduced to her father’s legacy, and uncove

It's the centenary of 1916 and who would the president ask to tell the story of our great nation? The Rubberbandits, of course. Join the boys as they crash through Irish history from Brian Boru, through the Famine and right up to Irish independence, with the help of the trout of no craic, Willie O'DJ, some lads from the local takeaway and a goat. It’s like real history, but interesting.