RTÉ Announce Slate of New Shows in Season Launch

While announcing that favorites Bridget and Eamon, The Late Late Show, Podge & Rodge and The Young Offenders will return, RTE have revealed the new series that will be premiering in the next year on the network.

Most notable of the bunch is Taken Down starring Lynn Rafferty (Love/Hate), Orla Fitzgerald (The Young Offenders) and Brian Gleeson (Logan Lucky, Mother! and Phantom Thread). From the team behind Love/Hate including writer Stuart Carolan, the six-part series focuses on a detective investigating the violent death of a young Nigerian immigrant found abandoned close to a Direct Provision Centre.

Notable also in terms of drama is the sequel to 2016 Irish Independent drama Rebellion - Resistance. The series also stars Brian Gleeson, alongside Peaky Blinders' <Natasha O'Keefe and Simone Kirby.

Meanwhile, RTE also announced comedies Finding Joy and Women on the Verge. The first is written by and starring Amy Huberman as a woman thrust into the limelight as she tries to get over a break-up. Aisling Bea and Laura Whitmore will also appear.

Women on the Verge will be written by Sharon Horgan (Catastrophe) and will be a darkly comic tale about three friends whose lives are going in the wrong direction. Horgan, Kerry Condon (Better Call Saul), Eileen Walsh (Maze) and Nina Sosanya (Love Actually) will play the leads.

RTE also announced a number of upcoming documentaries. These include series focusing on the maternity wards of The Rotunda, how the property market affects us all in Our Lives in Property: Oxmantown Road and how Ireland treats its elderly in Brendan Courtney’s We Need to Talk About Mam.

RTÉ will also partner with BBC on three series.

Death and Nightingales tells the story of one young woman’s struggle to control her own destiny in Northern Ireland in the 1880s. Ann Skelly (Kissing Candice), Matthew Rhys (The Post) and Jamie Dornan (The Fall) star.

Mother’s Day focuses on two mothers on either side of the Irish Sea for whom the Warrington Bombing had a profound, life-changing impact.

Meanwhile, Doing Money tells the true story of Ana, snatched from the streets of London and put into sex slavery in Ireland.

"Today, we have launched a collection of new home-produced drama, comedy, arts, entertainment, documentary and lifestyle programming that showcases an ever-broadening range of perspectives, with new voices, new faces and new themes," said RTE Director-General Dee Forbes in a statement.

"From the violent birth of our nation, captured in both drama and documentary, to the modern day heroes of the Rotunda Hospital this new season explores all sides of Irish life, past and present."

In addition, RTÉ will broadcast international dramas with highlights including the second series of Mr Mercedes starring Brendan Gleeson, new hit show Killing Eve starring Sandra Oh, Jodie Comer and Fiona Shaw; as well as the sixth season of local production Vikings.

For the list of announcements, follow this link.