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Appetite for Distraction

What to watch and listen to this week: The making of modern Dublin and a Love Island finale

A new RTÉ documentary tells the story of a Dublin fireman a fireman who cycled around the city with a Brownie 8mm movie camera recording changes to his city from the 1950s to the 1970s

What to watch, play and listen to: Conversations with Friends, an in-depth look at the Liffey and Joe Wicks on his childhood

A six-part RTÉ series looks at life on Dublin’s main river while the first episodes of the adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends starts on Wednesday with a double bill

What to watch and listen to this week: Maeve Binchy, Will Young and the history of the sliotar

The adored author is remembered on the tenth anniversary of her death and RTÉ’s Brainstorm asks whether your accent can affect your job prospects

What to watch and listen to this week: A dramatic portrayal of Oscar Wilde’s shocking fall from grace

A one-off drama depicts Oscar Wilde’s ordeal in Reading Gaol, while a documentary follows the reconstruction of Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic cabin

Emmanuel Kehoe on TV: Coogan fashions laughs from chaos in a slippery satire

More complex than comedic, Chivalry on Channel 4 confounds the viewer’s expectations at every turn as it satirises Hollywood in the wake of #MeToo

Emmanuel Kehoe on TV: Odenkirk answers the Call for the last time, but in fine style

The return of Better Call Saul for its sixth and final season is a bona fide TV event, and a tour de force of magnetic acting

What to watch and listen to this week: Detective chases cold case of her own dead daughter to Dublin

A largely Irish cast led by Paula Malcomson carries new drama Redemption, while the reincarnation story Life After Life is brought to the small screen

Emmanuel Kehoe on TV: Over-hyped and under-achieving Derry Girls seems to belong more in the 1970s than ’90s

Opening episode of final series not without comic merit but over-acted performances are off-putting

Emmanuel Kehoe on TV: The uplifting sight of an RTÉ veteran doing the walk of life

Charlie Bird’s courageous ascent up Croagh Patrick in the face of serious illness was the TV event of the week

Emmanuel Kehoe on TV: How a Great House led to a homely tale of resilience and refurbishment

Architect and presenter Hugh Wallace is delighted by the successful renovation of a doer-upper in Co Cork

Emmanuel Kehoe on TV: Beloved Bannon may finally be running out of Room to roam

The bafflingly popular show ended its current run with more fairy-dust budgets and existential crises over trifling decorative matters

Emmanuel Kehoe on TV: Samuel L Jackson rages against the dying of the light in The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

The veteran actor is compulsively watchable as a dementia-afflicted senior citizen

Emmanuel Kehoe on TV: Life imitates art as Channel 4 unearths a different Volodymyr Zelenskyi

The Ukrainian President’s lead role in a 2015 TV series makes for faintly unnerving viewing in the light of current events

Emmanuel Kehoe on TV: Reporters in Ukraine relay grim details in fight against both Putin and misinformation

In a time when online pranksters present video-game graphics as ‘real’ footage of the attack on Ukraine, reliable TV journalism is more vital than ever

What to watch and listen to this week: Two documentaries look at the real stories behind Peaky Blinder and Witchfinders

Emmanuel Kehoe on TV: Looking back at the short life of a true Irish original

The late broadcaster Vincent Hanley, whose brief but spectacular career lit up Irish screens in the 1980s, was profiled in RTÉ’s

Jason Byrne interview: ‘Stand-up comedy is like a curse sometimes. You can’t just step away’

The Dublin-born comedian's livelihood was badly damaged by the pandemic, but a recent health scare means he’s keeping everything very much in perspective

Ray Foley interview: ‘Keeping people company is the most important thing’

The new presenter of Today FM’s 2pm-4.30pm show credits the late Gerry Ryan with igniting his love for radio and reflects on the highs and lows of his own career behind the microphone so far

Radio and theatre: Fifty years on, the events of Bloody Sunday still resonate

An Abbey Theatre reading of Richard Norton-Taylor’s powerful reaction to the the Saville Inquiry in 2010 illustrates the human suffering and the long wait for justice

TV: Will Ozark’s unhappy family finally get their comeuppance?

Drug importers and money launderers, the Byrdes dream of respectability and redemption. But as the bodies mount up, it is hard to see how the final series can grant the family those wishes