NO MATTER HOW hotly anticipated The Traitors Ireland was, nobody could have predicted just how sensational its first season has been. 

It’s safe to say the tension, the drama and the chaos have audiences absolutely captivated by Ireland’s take on the beloved reality game.

This week, we’re looking at the five best moments of The Traitors Ireland. Naturally, this article will contain spoilers for the show. 

Father-son bonding

Straight away, one of the most interesting dynamics to emerge on The Traitors Ireland was that between Andrew and Paudie, a father and son who each applied for the show independently of one another.

While the pair tried to conceal their connection from the other players at large, there was one hilarious moment during which Andrew called out to his father using the word ‘Daddy!’ The duo managed to get away with the Freudian slip without anyone else hearing, but it was a sign of things to come in terms of the secrecy and excitement of the show so far. 

Funeral rites

Perhaps the most eye-catching moment of the series so far was the elaborate funeral held for ‘Faithful’ Christine after she was banished from the show. The funeral captured many of the hallmarks of an Irish funeral —including a long line of RTÉ extras staged as mourners for the cast to shake hands with. Christine herself ended up lying in a literal coffin as audiences applauded the show’s commitment to the bit. 

Christine’s funeral was a high-budget affair that deservedly received its flowers for evoking a real sense of pageantry and marking the show as unmissable television. 

 The Eamon of it all

Eamon has been one of the show’s most controversial characters, and he was voted off the show by his fellow competitors after an animated row with Paudie at the roundtable. Eamon, who works as a guard in the real world, had been playing the game and had been hatching several schemes by liaising with the other contestants. Eventually however, the suspicion around him grew too great.

Speaking after he was voted off the show, Eamon explained his approach: “I played a pure character; it’s a bit of fun. You have to do stuff that’s a little bit underhanded and that’s the nature of the game.”

“What you see on screen isn’t real life, it’s a bit of fun,” he added. “I purposefully went out there to create a character for the country to root against, and I think the majority of people watching the show can take it for what it is.”

Three-way conclave drama

Whatever the opposite of a ‘love triangle’ is: this was it. Host Siobhán McSweeney had Traitors Paudie, Eamon and Katelyn assigned to fool the Faithfuls into banishing one of their own, but before too long, things had descended into a three-way debate between the Traitors — with all three of them undermining each other’s cause.

In a tense conclave where all three of them tried to make themselves look like Faithfuls, Eamon and Katelyn tore into Paudie for not playing the game well enough, and all three interrupted each other more than a political debate. 

Mean girls

One of the most dramatic roundtables we’ve seen in the show’s tenth episode. Joanna was put on the back foot and accused of lying about the kind of questions other contestants have been asking in an alleged attempt to paint them as the traitors.

Quite quickly, the mood around the table shifted against Joanna and her fellow contestants began voting her out, prompting her to take aim at the contestants who had led the charge against her, including Vanessa.

She left the show with perhaps the most stinging final words yet: “I actually hope one of the guys will win it, because you are mean girls – and I’m a faithful.”