Last week, I was chatting with a friend of mine, an Irish actor named Ciaran Byrne who has been in a million crime shows and films, and he mentioned some of his favorite less-mainstream bleak-as-hell UK/European crime shows. Well, in our chat, he also gave me a few recommendations for his favorite less-mainstream bleak-as-hell IRISH series.
I’m sure readers of this website well know series like Dublin Murders and Bodkin and How to Get to Heaven From Belfast. And of course, the new Alicia Silverstone series on Acorn, Irish Blood. But here are a few more crime shows coming out of the Emerald Isle, for your bleary, existential, stress-watching pleasure!
Blackshore
In Kate O’Riordan’s piercing thriller series, a young police detective from Dublin becomes enmeshed in a missing person’s case in her hometown, a case with great implications towards the past she’d like to forget.
Kin
You’ve probably heard of this one, but anyway… Charlie Cox leads the stacked cast of this series about the Kinsellas, an Irish crime family embroiled in a gang war.
Red Rock
This soapy crime series, which ran from 2015-2020, is set in a bustling Dublin Garda Síochána station. There are 117 episodes, which must be some kind of record for an EU-set crime series. (Yes, I know soaps have many more episodes than normal procedurals. I’ve just never in my life recommended a British crime show that I couldn’t watch all of in a day. Red Rock is the EastEnders of crime!)
Crá
Crá, also known as Boglands, is prohibitively dark for me (I mean, most of these shows are), so you’ll have to trust Ciaran. The plot? The body of Conall Ó Súilleabháin’s mother, who has been missing for fifteen years, is finally found in a bog. He’s forbidden from officially investigating, so he teams up with a journalist to solve the crime on his own, and bring justice to his mother’s name.
Irish Crime
Also known as Der Irland-Krimi, this German-Irish show from 2019 is about a retired German-born police psychologist who solves crimes in Galway. What turns her onto this new path? Well, the the body of her missing husband is found.
