O’Connell Street in Dublin marks two significant anniversaries in 2024. It’s 100 years since the thoroughfare previously known as Sackville Street received a grand reboot and was named anew after Ireland’s great liberator and the leader of the 19th-century campaign for Catholic Emancipation, Daniel O’Connell. But it’s also six months since it became a flashpoint for the Dublin riots – a frenzy of looting and mindless destruction that shattered the cuddly myth that Ireland is immune to the troglodyte forces of right-wing nationalism.
Not surprisingly, episode one of Nationwide’s three-part valentine to O’Connell Street (RTÉ One, Monday, 7pm) focuses on one of these dates and largely ignores the other. In that respect, it is thoroughly on-brand: Nationwide is a feel-good RTÉ institution that celebrates the wholesome minutiae of Irish life. It sticks to that tone here, even if there are moments when the grin feels forced.
O’Connell Street, let’s be honest, has long had a rough reputation. But wallowing in grittiness isn’t the Nationwide way, and the emphasis is on the positives. It starts with a fascinating tour of the street in the company of historian Nicola Pierce.
At the top of O’Connell Street, she explains that the 1911 statue of Charles Stewart Parnell by Augustus Saint-Gaudens was financed largely by Irish Americans – back home, Parnell was far too divisive a figure. [ Dublin portal reminds us that our capital has an uneasy edge of wildness .
