Episode 2
Phoenix Cricket Club is one of the oldest cricket clubs in the world. Founded in 1830, it has been an emblematic part of the Phoenix Park ever since. Club president Michael Brown, groundskeeper/ manager Collie Byrne and star player Ben show us around their historic club.
While they are all immensely proud of Phoenix Cricket Club, the goings are tough at the moment, and winning their crucial match against rival club YMCA today is paramount to them surviving in Division One of the Leinster League.
For the past 350 years, a five hundred-strong herd of fallow deer has called the Phoenix Park home. For the past seven years, head deer keeper and general deer expert Terry has looked after them. His duties range from advising the public on the potential hazards of getting too
close to the herd, to catching, weighing and tagging newborn fawns every summer. However, as we see in a harrowing moment in this episode, sometimes Terry has to take painful decisions in order to protect the welfare of the herd.
We also meet one of the residents of the Phoenix Park’s thirty lodges: Mrs. Carr. Mrs. Carr has lived in the park all her life and has seen motor car racing, presidential visits and even a bomb drop on the cricket pavilion during her lifetime in the park.
And finally, there’s a visit to Mommy Bootcamp, where fitness instructors Lorraine and Graham put new mammies through their paces with their babies and buggies in toe.
Series Overview:
For the first time in Irish broadcasting history, Moondance Productions has been given complete access to one of Ireland’s most loved and visited public spaces – Phoenix Park. In this monumental new six-part documentary series, viewers go behind-the-scenes like never before in one of Europe’s largest city parks.
Narrated by Emmy winner Baz Ashmawy and airing at 8.30pm on RTÉ One on Wednesdays from September 6th, It’s a Park’s Life is the perfect show for the whole family to sit down and enjoy together.
Phoenix Park is like a city within a city. Three hundred and fifty years old and spanning over 1,750 acres in the centre of Dublin, it is a diverse microcosm lived in and enjoyed by dignitaries and Dubliners alike.
Later in the series, we go behind the scenes at the residence of US Ambassador to Ireland, Kevin O’Malley. With unprecedented access for Irish television, viewers are taken on a tour of the splendid Deerfield Residence and journey into the luxurious guest bedroom where John F. Kennedy stayed during his historic visit to Ireland in 1963. There’s also an intimate concert from Grammy winner Jimmy Webb as part of the Creative Minds series and the annual 4th of July summer party, where the three and half thousand guests consume about 10,000 hotdogs. It’sbold, brash, and very American!
We meet Phoenix Park’s head deer keeper, Terry, who has been casting a watchful eye over the park’s 500-strong herd for seven years and counting. Born and raised in Ballymun in Dublin, Terry worked in the airport for years before landing his dream job. While Terry loves what he does, it does not come without its tough moments, something made painfully clear to viewers in a harrowing moment in the second episode of the series.
Throughout this landmark series, viewers will also get a chance to meet some of the people who give the Phoenix Park its unique charm. There’s Barbara and her “children”, six Maltese dogs, former Dublin hurler Joey Towell, who teaches hurling to busloads of tourists every single day for free, and Gráinne, the park’s beloved ice-cream lady-cum-matchmaker.
There’s also Ireland’s oldest cricket club, the Phoenix Cricket Club, the Irish Army Equitation School, a lifetime park resident, the Leinster Model Flying Club, a Mommy Bootcamp, an Irish Paralympian and lots, lots more.
It’s a Park’s Life is produced and directed by Shane Brennan of Moondance Productions, creator of the long-running and much-loved series The Zoo.