The Best TV Shows on RTÉ One

Every RTÉ One Show Ranked From Best To Worst

RTÉ One’s extensive portfolio includes more than 20 shows, spanning the years from 1956 to 2025. Notable series such as Eurovision Song Contest and The Late Late Show from RTÉ One first graced the screens in 1956 and 1962. Our curated list, current as of January 2026, showcases over 20 of RTÉ One’s highest-rated series.

  • The Fall
    The Fall (2013)7.7

    When the Police Service of Northern Ireland are unable to close a case after 28 days, Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson of the Metropolitan Police Service is called in to review the case. Under her new leadership, the local detectives must track down and stop a serial killer who is terrorising the city of Belfast.

  • Kin
    Kin (2021)7.6

    The lives of a Dublin family embroiled in a gangland war and the consequences of their choices.

  • Obituary
    Obituary (2023)7.6

    When Elvira’s editor informs her that she will be paid per article, she begins murdering people to avoid going broke. Her plans are shaken when she falls for the crime reporter.

  • Love/Hate
    Love/Hate (2010)7.5

    Modern-day underworld characters Nidge and John Boy wrestle for control of Dublin's illicit drug trade in this forceful crime drama.

  • Mrs Brown's Boys
    Mrs Brown's Boys (2011)7.5

    Mrs. Brown's Boys is a British-Irish award winning sitcom created by and starring writer and performer Brendan O'Carroll. The show is based on O'Carroll's stage plays about the character Agnes Browne, which were developed from books and straight-to-DVD films. The sitcom continues the stories of Agnes, now with the shortened surname "Brown", and her family who are played by real life close friends and family of O'Carroll's. After being slated by critics, the show has become a ratings success in both Ireland, where it is set, and the United Kingdom, where it is recorded. On 29 December 2012 the show began its third series. Mrs Brown's Boys is a co-production among BBC Scotland, BocPix and RTÉ.

  • Eurovision Song Contest
    Eurovision Song Contest (1956)7.3

    The Eurovision Song Contest is an international song competition, organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and featuring participants representing primarily European countries. Each participating country submits an original song to be performed on live television and radio, transmitted to national broadcasters via the EBU's Eurovision and Euroradio networks, with competing countries then casting votes for the other countries' songs to determine the winner.

  • Rebellion
    Rebellion (2016)7.0

    A group of young men and women in Dublin in 1916 are embroiled in a fight for independence during the Easter Rising. The story begins with the outbreak of World War I. As expectations of a short and glorious campaign are dashed, social stability is eroded and Irish nationalism comes to the fore. The tumultuous events that follow are seen through the eyes of a group of friends from Dublin, Belfast and London as they play vital and conflicting roles in the narrative of Ireland's independence.

  • The Gone
    The Gone (2023)7.0

    It follows Theo Richter, an Irish detective who teams with Kiwi cop Diana Huia to find a young Irish couple vanish from an infamous rural North Island New Zealand town. Amidst the search and a race against time, the pair have to contend with a community’s growing disquiet that the disappearances may be linked to a series of historical murders.

  • Hidden Assets
    Hidden Assets (2021)6.6

    A routine raid led by Emer Berry, a detective in the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau, reveals that a small-time drug dealer has been receiving substantial funding from a seemingly untraceable source – not in cash, but in rough diamonds. When these diamonds are linked to a series of bombings in Belgium, Emer is forced to work with Police Commissioner Christian De Jong.

  • Smother
    Smother (2021)6.6

    On the rugged coast of County Clare, Val Ahern's husband is found dead at the foot of a cliff the morning after a family party. The matriarch starts to dig into the family's secrets to find out who might be responsible.

  • Blackshore
    Blackshore (2024)6.6

    A police detective returns to her hometown and becomes involved in a missing person case, which is linked to her traumatic past and the town's dark history.

  • Clean Sweep
    Clean Sweep (2023)6.4

    Shelly Mohan is a regular mum who juggles the lives and schedules of three children and a husband who is a local detective. It’s a chaotic and mostly thankless life, but one with which she is happy…until a dark secret emerges from her past.

  • Resistance
    Resistance (2019)6.2

    This follow up to the Rebellion miniseries unfolds at the height of what became known as Ireland's War of Independence, and follows the lives of those caught up in the vicissitudes of history.

  • The Boy That Never Was
    The Boy That Never Was (2024)6.1

    When Dillon’s father Harry races back to their tiny apartment to rescue his child, the apartment is in rubble and there is no sign of his son. Three years later, thousands of miles away in Dublin, Harry spots a six-year-old boy in a crowd and is convinced he is Dillon. Desperate to find his son, Harry’s obsession tears apart his marriage to Robin, exposing shameful secrets that lead to the truth of what happened to their son on the night he went missing.

  • The Walsh Sisters
    The Walsh Sisters (2025)6.0

    Set in their Dublin hometown, Anna, Rachel, Maggie, Claire and Helen navigate the peaks and troughs of their late 20s and 30s. This is a sisterhood full of in-jokes, hand-me-down resentments and more than a few old wounds. But their DNA, history and shared love of power ballads keep the Walsh sisters together in the face of heartbreak, grief, addiction and parenthood.

  • Quirke
    Quirke (2014)5.9

    Quirke is the chief pathologist in the Dublin city morgue – a charismatic loner whose job takes him into fascinating places as he investigates sudden deaths in 1950s Dublin. His pleasures in life are raw and deep, a drink, a smoke, good food, a woman: With one woman in particular – his adoptive brother's wife Sarah and the forbidden love that has shaped and dominated Quirke's life.

  • The Clinic
    The Clinic (2003)5.3

    The Clinic is a multi award-winning Irish primetime television medical drama series produced by Parallel Film Productions for RTÉ. It debuted on RTÉ One in 2003 to positive reviews and proved to be one of the network's most popular shows. The drama ran for seven seasons between September 2003 to November 2007. The last ever episode aired on RTÉ One on Sunday 15 November 2009 and on YLE1 in Finland on Wednesday 25 November 2009. The complete series of The Clinic was released on DVD in November 2010 by RTÉ.

  • The Late Late Show
    The Late Late Show (1962)5.2

    Chat show that looks at current affairs in Ireland.

  • Fair City
    Fair City (1989)3.7

    The day-to-day dramas of the community who live and work in the fictional north Dublin suburb of Carrigstown.

  • Back to Barrytown
    Back to Barrytown (2021)N/A

    Colm Meaney presents a celebration of Roddy Doyle's trilogy about Dublin family the Rabbittes and the film adaptations of the books, The Commitments, The Snapper and The Van.