Appetite for Distraction: our pick of home entertainment

Your weekly guide to the best TV shows, podcasts, movies and video games out there

Michael Portillo, right, examines the historical background to the decision to partition Ireland with Professor Michael Laffan in Partition 1921

TV picks of the week

Partition 1921 (9.35pm, Monday, RTÉ One)

Michael Portillo is no stranger to Irish history, having made programmes around 1916 and the War of Independence. Here, he examines the historical background to the decision to partition the country, and how it came to be imposed in 1921. Unionist leader James Craig said he could boast “that we are a Protestant Parliament and a Protestant state”, but this state of affairs would lead to discrimination against Catholics trapped in the North and the emergence of violence when Stormont tried to suppress the civil rights movement in the late 1960s. On the same subject, Peter Taylor: Ireland after Partition, airing tomorrow at 9pm on BBC Two, sees the veteran documentary-maker looking back at films he has made about the North, and how his understanding of it has changed over the years. EK