{"id":69135,"date":"2025-09-17T07:07:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T07:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/69135\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T07:07:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T07:07:09","slug":"the-traitors-craic-wit-and-wolfhounds-has-restored-my-pride-in-ireland-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/69135\/","title":{"rendered":"The Traitors craic, wit and wolfhounds has restored my pride in Ireland \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re all watching The Traitors, right? And I\u2019m not talking about the cut-throat presidential nominations<\/a>. I\u2019m talking about the cloak and dagger action down at Slane Castle<\/a>, Co Meath<\/a>. I haven\u2019t felt this invested in a television programme since a young Dublin<\/a> lesbian called Anna Nolan charmed us all on the first series of Big Brother 25 years ago. She was robbed, you might remember, coming runner-up to a builder with big biceps called Craig. Still, Nolan went on to build a successful career in television, in front of the cameras at first and eventually as a producer behind the scenes. \u201cIt changed my life for the better,\u201d the former nun once said. Reality television, for all its much ventilated flaws, can do that sometimes. <\/p>\n

Obviously, I\u2019m aware that a few of you are not watching The Traitors<\/a>. You have better things to be doing. Reality TV brings you out in hives and you can\u2019t understand why, when the world is in such a state of chassis, so much of the national discourse at the moment concerns a group of ordinary people from all over the country who are holed up in a castle playing a murder mystery game presided over by Sr Michael from Derry Girls<\/a>. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018A mix of Enya and Countess Markievicz\u2019: Siobh\u00e1n McSweeney dresses up for The TraitorsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Presenter Siobh\u00e1n McSweeney<\/a>, by the way, is just one of many reasons to give Traitors Ireland a whirl if you haven\u2019t done so yet. She is playing a blinder. Her witty asides, snappy put-downs, iconic eye-rolls, outstanding outfits \u2013 my children are sick of my gasps whenever she appears in another showstopping dress or suit or cloak or kimono \u2013 and obvious enjoyment at being queen of the castle are all television gold. I suppose my answer to why so many of us are invested in The Traitors is that sometimes, especially in times of chassis, we humans appreciate a wholesome escape. And if the lack of clothes on Love Island was a turn-off for some, The Traitors, with full-length cloaks, lots of cosy jumpers and blankets to fend off the castle\u2019s chill factor, is a compelling and often hilarious show full of gas characters we can get behind. <\/p>\n

To be honest, the UK version, presided over by fringetastic Claudia Winkleman<\/a>, passed me by so I wasn\u2019t aware of the rules. To recap, a group of contestants work together to complete missions and earn money for a shared prize pot. Among them are secretly chosen Traitors who are tasked with eliminating the others, known as Faithfuls, without being discovered. Each night, the Traitors secretly \u201cmurder\u201d a player \u2013 this is done by signing a piece of paper as opposed to actual bodily harm \u2013 while the group gathers each night to vote out suspected Traitors. The Faithful try to expose and banish Traitors so they can share the prize money. Traitors who manage to remain undetected can claim the entire reward.<\/p>\n

The programme is, in some ways, representative of what it means to be Irish in 2025. Many of the mostly twenty or thirtysomething contestants when asked what they would do with the possible \u20ac50,000 prize money talked about using it to fund their dream of owning a house as though, instead of being a realistic aspiration, it was a fantastical notion, which of course for so many young people these days it is. There are four contestants Oyin, Vanessa, Will and Joanna who come from immigrant backgrounds and they reflect the beautiful, country-enhancing diversity that has emerged here in recent decades. Oyin, who I will come back to later, for example is a model and a gamer who has already established herself as a breakout star of the show. <\/p>\n

My teenagers are mad about Limerick legend Paudie, a former prison guard and highly entertaining recently departed Traitor. Paudie is 68 and came in for a bit of barracking from some younger contestants. \u201cElder abuse!\u201d my teenagers shouted protectively at the television when anyone so much as looked sideways at him. In an inspired piece of casting by producers Kite Entertainment, Paudie\u2019s son Andrew was also in the show while the other contestants remained oblivious to that familial connection. <\/p>\n

But my favourite contestant is Oyin Adeyemi. Firstly, she has the coolest hairstyle ever seen on prime time RT\u00c9 television<\/a>. But more importantly she has emerged as the most astute, perceptive, insightful and thoughtful person in the castle and possibly the country. One of her many shining moments came at the nightly round table where contestants gather to decide who to banish. As the three traitors Paudie, Katelyn and Eamon got into a heated and misguided argument, she listened intently and eventually asked \u201cis this a fight between traitors?\u201d which unbeknown to everyone else was exactly what it was. \u201cYes, Queen!\u201d as certain people in my household would put it. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0The Traitors Ireland: That RT\u00c9 is operating on a relative shoe-string budget is obviousOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve resisted the show so far and feel it\u2019s too late, all the episodes are on the RT\u00c9 Player so you can easily catch up with a bit of a binge. It\u2019s worth it, I promise. Traitors with all its style, craic, wit and wolfhounds not to mention fabulous use of Donegal tweed, is restoring my pride in this country at a time when it\u2019s been dented by racist attacks<\/a>, tricolour-obsessed dopes<\/a> and that malevolent eejit who wants a go at the \u00c1ras. Ireland is full? Full of great telly. And I don\u2019t care if she\u2019s only 23: Oyin Adeyemi for President. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019re all watching The Traitors, right? And I\u2019m not talking about the cut-throat presidential nominations. I\u2019m talking about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[48014,18,117,2215,19,56,17,59,48012,1181,36477,48013],"class_list":{"0":"post-69135","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-claudia-winkleman","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-for-you","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-immigration","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-presidential-election","16":"tag-roisin-ingle","17":"tag-rte","18":"tag-siobhan-mcsweeney","19":"tag-slane-castle"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}