RTÉ One’s hugely popular social history series THE WAY WE WERE returns for a 3rd season in September ’23.
The romance of nostalgia battles the hard facts of our lived reality in 20th Century Ireland as a cast of well-known Irish personalities and social historians look back on ‘The Way We Were’
Featuring Broadcasters Mike Murphy, Francis Brennan, John Creedon, Ciara Kelly, Brendan Courtney, Eileen Dunne, Mick Clifford, Paul Williams. Entertainers Pat Shortt, Sue Collins, Katherine Lynch and Michael Harding plus a host of Social Historians and Commentators each episode remembers a different aspect of life in Ireland over the past 100 years. Themes in this season are:
HEALTH and WELLBEING
From the evolution of our Public Healthcare system to the eradication of the many harrowing diseases of childhood and poverty. From our attitudes towards women’s healthcare to our changing attitudes towards mental health this is an episode that cuts to the quick of who we were and who we are today.
FOOD – THE WAY WE ATE
The 20th century changed the shape of our eating habits – from a full cooked Dinner in the Middle of The Day to the birth of all new meals…like Supper, elevenses…and Brunch!
From disappearing fasting customs to the ‘snackification’ of our daily diet, from the coming of ‘foreign’ foods to the way TV Cookery Shows reflected our changing foods tastes.
CRIME and PUNISHMENT
From the chequered History of our Garda force to the shockingly late abolition of the Death Penalty, from the criminalisation of children to the changing face of the prison system and how the 20th Century brought us ‘crime as entertainment’ as the tabloids whipped up fear and excitement around crime gang culture and the terrifying escalation of the drug wars in the 1980s
