Happy St. Patrick's Day!

To celebrate St. Patrick's Day, I've pulled together a list of 12 fantastic Irish TV shows, available to watch right now.

Including hit comedies Bad Sisters, Derry Girls and The Young Offenders, as well as stunning dramas The Fall, Normal People, Trespasses and many more.

Bad Sisters

Apple TV

Launching back in August 2022, Bad Sisters is, for me, one of the best shows on Apple TV to date. The dark comedy follows the lives of the Garvey sisters, who are bound together by the premature deaths of their parents and a promise always to protect one another.

Written and executive produced by Sharon Horgan, Bad Sisters ran for two series and was adapted from the Belgian series, Clan, which was created by Malin-Sarah Gozin.

It stars Sharon Horgan, Anne-Marie Duff, Eva Birthistle, Sarah Greene and Eve Hewson as the Garvey sisters with Claes Bang, Brian Gleeson, Daryl McCormack, Assaad Bouab and Saise Quinn, with Fiona Shaw joining for the show's second series.

Series one follows what happens when their brother-in-law winds up dead, and his life insurers launch an investigation to prove malicious intent, setting their sights on the sisters, all of whom had ample reason to kill him.

Series two takes place two years after the “accidental death” of Grace’s abusive husband, the close-knit Garvey sisters may have moved on, but when past truths resurface, the ladies are thrust back into the spotlight, suspicions are at an all-time high, lies are told, secrets revealed, and the sisters are forced to work out who they can trust.

Blue Lights

BBC iPlayer

Launching back in March 2023 on BBC One, Blue Lights, written by Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson, follows three rookie police officers working in Belfast, a uniquely dangerous place to be a police officer. To date, there have been three series with a fourth airing later this year.

It stars Siân Brooke, Martin McCann, Katherine Devlin, Nathan Braniff, Joanne Crawford, Andi Osho and Hannah McClean, with Frank Blake, Seamus O’Hara and Seána Kerslake joining for series two and Cathy Tyson and Michael Smiley joining for series three.

Grace, a mother of a teenage boy has made the decision in her 40s to leave her steady job as a social worker to join the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Having previously worked in social care, she straddles a fine line between the personal and professional. It’s the biggest gamble of her life, and just a few weeks into the job, she’s making so many mistakes that her decision no longer looks like a winning bet.

Her fellow rookies are Annie, who struggles with the fact that her chosen path may mean having to leave everything she’s ever known behind, and Tommy, who is desperate to prove himself, despite being disastrously inept at the practical side of frontline response policing.

All three are new police officers in their probation period with the PSNI, the odds are at least one of them isn’t going to last. The pressure is immense, but if they succumb to it, they won’t survive.

Series two takes place one year after series one, and Belfast city centre is awash with drugs and beset by street crime. Response officers Grace, Annie and Tommy are no longer wide-eyed rookies, and they begin to feel the personal and psychological effects of relentless and punishing police work.

A year into the job, the team are faced with a drug-fuelled crime wave that leads them into a loyalist estate and a violent clash puts Stevie and Grace’s working relationship at risk.

In series three, response officers Grace, Annie and Tommy are now two years into their jobs and accustomed to life under the blue lights. But their work will take them into a sinister world hidden behind the veneer of middle-class life, the world of the accountants and lawyers who facilitate organised crime.

The old political and criminal order has gone, and a new global gang rule Belfast, bringing danger closer to home for our officers than ever before.

Derry Girls

Channel 4 and Netflix

Launching back in January 2018 on Channel 4, Derry Girls, written and created by Lisa McGee, ran for three series and is a hilarious nineties-set comedy set against the spectre of The Troubles.

It stars Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Nicola Coughlan, Jamie-Lee O'Donnell, Louisa Harland, Dylan Llewellyn, Tara Lynne O'Neill, Tommy Tiernan, Kathy Kiera Clarke, Ian McElhinney, Leah O'Rourke, Siobhán McSweeney and more.

Derry Girls takes a look at the everyday lives of ordinary people living in extraordinary times, and series one follows Erin and her friends as they grow used to seeing their country on the nightly news and speaking in acronyms (The IRA, The UDA, The RUC).

But, despite all that, Erin has other things to worry about, like the fact that the boy she's in love with doesn’t know she exists. Or that her family make her include her weirdo cousin in everything she does. Or that her Head of English, Sister Michael, refuses to acknowledge Erin is a literary genius. Or that a four-foot-tall, 11-year-old girl has started bullying her.

Or that one of her calves is definitely bigger than the other, and her mother is refusing to pay for surgery, even though she's basically deformed. Or the fact that her second-best friend has almost had sex and she's never even kissed someone yet. These are her troubles.

In series two, Erin and the rest of the gang are excited to attend an outdoor pursuits weekend, which aims to bring Protestant and Catholic school kids together as part of a peace initiative. But peace is the last thing on Michelle's mind once she finds out that there will be Protestant lads there!

For the show's third and final series, while Northern Ireland is growing up, this gang of eejits certainly aren't anytime soon. And while there’s hope in the air that The Troubles may finally be over, their troubles are only just getting started as they get ever closer to “adulthood”.

The gang are back, and tomorrow is GCSE results day. While passions run high, confidence is at rock bottom. If things go badly, how will they face their mammies again? They definitely need a plan. Back home, a new member of the Quinn household is causing chaos in the neighbourhood.

The Dry

ITVX

Launching back in May 2022 on Britbox and RTÉ One, The Dry is a brilliant comedy-drama which celebrates the joyful chaos and dark absurdities of family life in a series that is all about recovery and came to ITVX in 2023, with series two following in 2025.

It stars Roisin Gallagher, Ciarán Hinds, Pom Boyd, Siobhán Cullen, Moe Dunford and Adam Richardson.

The first series saw 35-year-old Shiv Sheridan return to Dublin after years of partying in London, for her grandmother’s wake. Taking a break from London and her ‘career’ in art, she is six months sober, and it is fair to say her life is not going as planned.

Shiv’s family, who have never really dealt with or talked about the damage caused by the sudden death of her adored elder brother, not to mention her parents’ failing marriage or Shiv’s own chaotic behaviour, are wary of having her back.

To make matters worse, there’s also her charmer of an ex-boyfriend, Jack, who has the uncanny knack of always appearing when she’s at her most vulnerable. His charming presence reminds Shiv of the excitement and thrill of excess from her youth; to call him a trigger would be an understatement.

Can Shiv come to terms with her true addiction and the realities of her life, amid a dysfunctional yet loveable family that is each individually facing their own demons?

Series two picks up seven months on from the events of the first series, and we now meet the Sheridans in their new normal. To all outward appearances, it seems like the family is relatively content: Shiv’s been sober, celibate, and solvent for six months, Ant has hung onto his job at the estate agents and his relationship with Max, and Caroline’s making up for a lost time by shagging everyone she meets on Tinder. So far, so normal… Or is it?

After all, how normal is it for three grown adults to still be living at home with their parents? And are the Sheridans really happy with this new status quo, or have they just rearranged their dysfunction and found another groove of denial to fit into?

Shiv is determined to get sobriety right this time, to cut the toxic influences out of her life for good. But what if the biggest threat to Shiv’s stability turns out to be closer to home? Giving up alcohol is one thing…but what about giving up your family?

The Fall

BBC iPlayer, Disney+ and Netflix

Launching back in May 2013 on BBC Two and RTÉ One, Allan Cubitt’s intense psychological thriller, The Fall, which examines the lives of two hunters.

One is a serial killer who stalks his victims at random in and around Belfast, and the other is a talented female Detective Superintendent on secondment from the MET who is brought in to catch him.

It stars Gillian Anderson, Jamie Dornan, Séainín Brennan, Archie Panjabi, Emmett Scanlan, Bronagh Waugh and Karen Hassan, with Colin Morgan and Bronagh Taggart joining for series two, and Krister Henriksson, Aidan McArdle, Ruth Bradley, Aisling Bea and Richard Coyle joining for series three.

Series two picks up where the first left off, as Gibson continues her challenging hunt for Paul Spector, the killer who hides in plain sight.

The third and final series picks up where series two left off as the battle between Detective Superintendent Gibson and Paul Spector reaches its terrifying conclusion.

Bringing Spector to book is going to take much more now than simply holding him in custody. In the emotionally charged aftermath of the shooting, Gibson’s personal journey to exact justice for the victims’ families begins with a blood-soaked fight to keep the killer alive.

As The Fall reaches its inexorable conclusion, it’s clear that the rules of this deadly game of cat and mouse are set to shift once again.

How to Get to Heaven from Belfast

Netflix

Launching last month on Netflix, How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, is a superb new comedy thriller written and created by Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee, How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, is a show about friendship, memory, and what happens when life doesn’t turn out quite like you’d expected.

It stars Roísín Gallagher, Sinéad Keenan, Caoilfhionn Dunne, Bronagh Gallagher, Darragh Hand, Natasha O'Keeffe, Michelle Fairley, Selin Hizli, Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Jeanne Nicole Ní Áinle, Emmett J. Scanlan, Tom Basden, Ardal O'Hanlon, Leila Farzad, Matilda Freeman, Ryan McParland, Nikesh Patel, Deidre O'Kane and more.

It follows three childhood friends, now in their late 30s, who come together over news of a fourth friend’s death, leading them on a dark, dangerous and hilarious odyssey through Ireland and beyond as they try to piece together the truth of the past.

Clever, chaotic TV writer Saoirse, glamorous, stressed-out mother of three Robyn, and dependable, inhibited carer Dara have been a tight-knit group since school. Now in their late 30s, but still as close as ever, these three friends are about to embark on the most thrilling adventure of their lives.

When an email arrives, telling them about the death of the estranged fourth member of their childhood gang, Greta, a series of eerie events at her wake set them on a dark, dangerous and hilarious odyssey through Ireland and beyond as each tries to piece together the truth of the past.

Kin

BBC iPlayer and Netflix

Launching back in 2021 on RTÉ One, and then on BBC One in November 2023, Kin is an Irish crime drama written by Peter McKenna, about a Dublin crime family facing a seemingly impossible gangland war.

It stars Clare Dunne, Charlie Cox, Aidan Gillen, Ciarán Hinds, Sam Keeley, Emmett J. Scanlan, Maria Doyle Kennedy and Yasmin Seky.

In series one, after a boy is killed, his family embarks on a gangland war with an international cartel: a war that is impossible to win. The Kinsellas are a local crime family, while the Cunningham cartel is a vast global organisation. It is David and Goliath.

Outnumbered, out-financed and out-gunned, the Kinsellas find themselves holed up in their Dublin stronghold while their businesses fail, and family members and associates are picked off. But they have something the cartel does not: the unbreakable bonds of blood and family. They are kin.

Series two continues the story of the Kinsella family, who are now at the top of the crime game in Dublin, but their triumph has incurred the enmity of an enemy even more dangerous than Eamon Cunningham, and where once there were unbreakable bonds of blood and family, there is only suspicion, distrust, and resentment.

Normal People

BBC iPlayer, Disney+ and Netflix

Launching back in April 2020 on BBC Three and RTÉ One, Normal People became on of the year's most-watched and talked about dramas, turning its two leads, Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones, into household names.

Written by Sally Rooney, Alice Birch and Mark O'Rowe, Normal People is adapted from Rooney's novel of the same name and is an exquisite and compulsive modern love story about how two people can profoundly impact each other’s lives.

It follows Marianne and Connell and tracks their tender but complicated relationship, from the end of their school days in a small town in the west of Ireland to their undergraduate years at Trinity College.

At school, he’s well-liked and popular, while she’s lonely, proud and intimidating. But when Connell comes to pick up his mother from her cleaning job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers - one they are determined to conceal.

A year later, they’re both studying in Dublin, and Marianne has found her feet in a new social world, but Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain.

Say Nothing

Disney+ and Channel 4

Launching back in November 2024 on Disney+, Say Nothing from Joshua Zetumer is based on the book by Patrick Radden Keefe and tells a gripping true story of murder and memory in Northern Ireland during The Troubles.

It stars Lola Petticrew, Anthony Boyle, Hazel Doupe, Josh Finan, Maxine Peake, Seamus O'Hara, Kerri Quinn, Stuart Graham, Rory Kinnear, Amy Molloy, Frank Blake, Emma Canning, Adam Best, Martin McCann, Damien Molony and more.

Say Nothing spans four decades and opens with the shocking disappearance of Jean McConville, a single mother of ten who was abducted from her home in 1972 and never seen alive again. But McConville was only one of many others who became known collectively as The Disappeared.

Through the eyes of various IRA members, including sisters Dolours and Marian Price, two young women who transformed into magnetic symbols of radical politics, Brendan Hughes, a tight-lipped but conflicted military strategist and Gerry Adams, a savvy political operator who would go on to negotiate peace but ultimately deny his involvement with the IRA.

Trespasses

Channel 4

Launching back in November 2025 on Channel 4, Trespasses centres around a forbidden love story, set against the backdrop of the Troubles and has been adapted by Ailbhe Keogan from Louise Kennedy's novel of the same name.

It stars Lola Petticrew, Tom Cullen, Gillian Anderson, Martin McCann, Emily Taafe, Barry Ward, Gerard McCarthy and more.

1975, in a town outside Belfast. Whilst working one night behind the bar of her family pub, serving a mixed crowd including the locally stationed soldiers, Catholic schoolteacher Cushla meets Michael, an older Protestant married man, who often defends IRA suspects and is friends with cultured Bohemians who enrage and intrigue Cushla.

Worlds apart, Cushla knows a relationship like this spells all kinds of trouble, but they are irresistibly drawn to one another. In a place where loose lips cost lives and danger lurks in the shadows, amidst the fear and paranoia, this illicit affair between Cushla and Michael ignites and burns bright.

The Walsh Sisters

BBC iPlayer

Launching last month on BBC One, and in September 2025 on RTÉ One, The Walsh Sisters is inspired by the novels from Marian Keyes, and features the chaotic, dysfunctional but deeply lovable Walsh family of five sisters, a devout mother and a bemused father.

Written by Stefanie Preissner and Kefi Chadwick, it stars Caroline Menton, Louisa Harland, Danielle Galligan, Mairead Tyers, Stefanie Preissner, Aidan Quinn, Carrie Crowley, Samuel Anderson and more.

Set in their Dublin hometown, The Walsh Sisters follows the lives of Anna, Rachel, Maggie, Claire and Helen as they navigate the peaks and troughs of their 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.

The Young Offenders

BBC iPlayer

Launching back in February 2018 on BBC Three and RTÉ2, The Young Offenders is an Irish comedy, created by Peter Foott, and based on his original film, following the adventures of loveable rogues Conor and Jock and their mother/guardian Mairead, as she tries to keep them on the straight and narrow.

It stars Alex Murphy, Chris Walley, Hilary Rose, Dominic MacHale Jennifer Barry, Demi Isaac Oviawe, P. J. Gallagher, Orla Fitzgerald and Shane Casey.

Series one follows the coming-of-age adventures of lovable rogues Conor and Jock as they navigate their awkward teenage years, hatching plans and adventures to help distract them from their tough home lives and their inability to stay out of trouble at school.

Conor's long-suffering mother, Mairead, tries to keep both her son and his best friend on the straight and narrow, with varying degrees of success.

Friendship, loyalty, laughter and lots of mischief bring best pals Conor and Jock into conflict with their headmaster, leaving Conor’s mum to pick up the pieces. To add fuel to the fire, the lads strike up friendships with the headmaster's daughters.

In series two, Conor and Jock are up to their old tricks again, this time trying to outsmart the police by doing the exact opposite of what they would expect.

With a new arrival on the way, Jock is getting anxious, and Principal Walsh isn’t helping. But a challenge to Jock brings about surprising results.

Series three sees Conor and Jock get roped into an amateur heist masterminded by Billy Murphy, and drafting in baby Star causes chaos!

In series four, Conor and Jock have grown older, but not any wiser and a madcap trip sees them on the wrong side of the law as they’re given a free holiday to Colombia from a Spanish-speaking fella.