FAIR CITY WAS the topic of conversation for many this week given the introduction of a new character to Carrigstown.

Fergal Boyle, played by actor Craig Connelly, is the estranged brother of Gar and is presented as having far-right views. 

A recent episode of the RTÉ soap saw Fergal posting far right-wing flyers and he also went on a conspiracy-laden monologue about card payments.

“Follow the money my friend,” says Fergal.

“The financial institutions wanted us to switch to contactless payment, so hey presto, all of a sudden handling cash actually becomes toxic, an actual death risk. Convenient or what?

“Governments engineered a false narrative exaggerating the danger [of Covid]… it’s all about data harvesting in the end.”

His introduction on the show has led some on the left to argue that his viewpoints shouldn’t be platformed, while some on the right have accused Fair City of patronising viewers.

Others, however, have said that the character is a reflection of things that are happening in the real world and highlights how pervasive conspiracy theories have become since the Covid pandemic.

“A particularly unsubtle attempt by RTÉ to ‘educate’ the people they believe cannot be reached by argument,” said Senator Rónán Mullen on X, formerly known as Twitter.

A particularly unsubtle attempt by RTÉ to ‘educate’ the people they believe cannot be reached by argument. How they do patronize the great unwashed. https://t.co/j1sDjbUIDr

— Senator Rónán Mullen (@RonanMullen) August 29, 2023

“How they do patronize the great unwashed,” wrote Mullen on X.

However, Fair City staff say the storyline is focused on the character, rather than the issues.

They add that the audience should be given credit for “taking on board that each character will have a different voice and different opinons”.

‘Ruffle feathers’

Speaking to The Journal, Fair City Series Consultant Ciarán Hayden explained more about how the character of Fergal Boyle came to be.

“When we are creating a character, with Fergal in particular, we had trailed his arrival a good bit before he actually arrived on screen,” said Hayden.

“We had his brother Gar, who was adopted into the Boyle family, he arrived into the show first, and so did his adoptive mother Jacinta.

“So we wanted to trail the potential arrival of a brother called Fergal who we knew Gar did not get along with for various reasons that we were going to explore once Fergal arrived on screen.”

Hayden added that “we wanted somebody who’d immediately ruffle feathers but also keeping the brothers’ story at the heart of it all.”

“This is really about the brothers at its heart,” said Hayden, “and some of the things and opinions that Fergal might express is only one element of his character and how we see his broader arc.

“It’s not just that we decided to bring in somebody for controversy or that his views were all he has in his armoury.

“He’s got a broader story purpose as far as we’re concerned, as a more ongoing character for the show, that will provide lots of story for us.”

Hayden acknowledged that “the minute Fergal arrived on screen, there was a bit of action online about him”.

However, Hayden told The Journal that these are views which many of us may have been exposed to in our own lives.

“Early on in the story, the beliefs he expresses, they’re out there online and a lot of people have these beliefs.

“Members of my own family and friends would have beliefs that would be more aligned to Fergal’s than others, but that debate around that started before Fergal had shown a truly dark side.

“What we’re starting to show at the moment is that some of these beliefs start to spill into behaviours that could be considered to be very problematic.”

‘More extreme end of things’

The flyer Fergal can be seen posting in a recent Fair City episode reads: “Fight against the leftist regime. Ireland will rise up.”

“Say for example the flyers that Fergal is giving out,” said Hayden, “there’s nothing there that’s not readily available online, both in moderate and more extreme right-wing platforms.

“At times with our characters, we like to make them big and distinct, and possibly this is a more extreme version of these views.

“But I’d also say that in terms of the research we’ve done on the character and the kind of websites that he might be looking at and the kind of beliefs he might have formed because of that, these are all things that are readily available and are out there.

“We’ve decided to have him on the more extreme end of things because both for drama, and for his kind of voice in his personality and his character, it seemed to work quite well for him.”

Fair City’s Executive Producer Brigie De Courcy, also speaking to The Journal, pointed out that the story was set in motion a “very long time ago” and that “we’re not going in there to be provocative”.  

“We’ve had people who’ve had bizarre views on all sorts of things in the past,” said De Courcy.

“We had Christy who was into UFOs, Eunice rustling up spirits from wherever and who had all sorts of chanting events, so we’re not making an editorial judgment on this.

“We’re not editorialising at all. We’re not taking a position except in the broadest possible sense.”

De Courcy added that “representing something on the show isn’t an endorsement of it”.

“We’ve had doctors who have murdered people, and we haven’t held up all doctors to be murderers.

“It’s not that we’re going in there to say, ‘right, this is a really great issue’.

“We’re not issue based, as such, we’re really character focused.

“It’s looking at the brothers, looking at Gar, that sort of upright person and what would be his opposite in a way, that’s where we were coming from.”

Hayden also noted that “we have people who have very strong views in the show all the time”.

“We have other characters who have been very religious in the past, people who are very anti-religious, and I think it’s only fair that we give life to these characters beyond the normal everyday stuff.

“They need to have opinions and strong opinions and that’s what makes them fully-fledged, three-dimensional characters as well.”

He added that the audience is aware that the show is a “drama” and its purpose is to entertain.

“We’re here to entertain, but this is not real life. What we try to do is present real life with all the boring bits taken away.”

He told The Journal that there isn’t a “danger” of platforming Fergal’s far-right views.

“We have to give our audience credit for taking on board that each character will have a different voice and different opinions.

“It might spark debate, which is a good thing, we always want people to be talking about Fair City, but in terms of platforming anything, that’s not our intention at all.”

Hayden said “it’s right that we question the world around us with an open mind”, but added that this is not what Fergal does.

“Fergal will never ever debate anything properly with anybody else.

“His views are so entrenched that there doesn’t seem to be any room for debate with that character.

“That’s a big difference because what’s great with family or friends’ groups, is people are coming around to the way of thinking that you don’t have to believe everything of one kind of politics.

“I think it becomes extremism on any level where you just blindly follow every single trail you might go down if you follow one rabbit hole on the internet.

“People should be more open to debating these things and that’s the danger with Fergal.”

Meanwhile, De Courcy notes that Fergal has to be a “part of the Carrigstown community”.

“There will be things that he will never do. He’s not blowing up Shannon airport, we have to actually keep it within our walls as such.

“There will be things that other people do out there in the real world that we are never going to be able to do within ours.

“It’s the impact that somebody like this can have on our Carrigstown community that we’re actually interested in.

“It’s his behaviours, it’s what does when he goes into the shop, with other characters, it’s those things, rather than the absolutely extremist things that we’ve all read about.”

Hayden adds that Fair City works best “when we’re dealing with this kind of big social issue, but we bring it down to a kind of community level”.

“That’s what Carrigstown is all about really,” said Hayden.

“It’s a family in a way and when people watch the show, to a large degree we want people to want to be in Carrigstown, to enjoy the community of these characters.

“When somebody comes in and upsets that community, I suppose that’s where we get a lot of drama from, rather than going way too big and unrealistic on it.”

‘A lot of people watching’

As for what comes next for Fergal, Hayden won’t give anything away but adds: “This is phase one of Fergal’s story so we have a lot of road to travel with Fergal.

“This morning, we were editing stories for February and March.

“We’re so far ahead and we plan these big character arcs really carefully, especially when it’s somebody like Fergal who we are investing a lot of emotional energy in.

“There’s a lot more to come from him in terms of his interaction with various characters on the show, so it should be quite exciting.”

De Courcy adds that Fergal is “not a one note character” and that he will have a long character arc.

Meanwhile, the Fair City Executive Producer has welcomed the debate that Fergal has created.

“I was very interested with a lot of people saying they never watch it, and I have no opinion on it, and I’ve never seen it,” said De Courcy, “but they then have all sorts of opinions about where we are going with the story and what’s going to happen with Fergal.

“So obviously, there’s a lot of people out there watching, and I like that.”