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IRELAND’S FIRST POST-watershed teen drama will hit TG4′s screens in early February, and its writer tells us we can expect that it’ll be gritty, authentic… and will have a touch of magic realism.
Set in the small and grim rural town of Dobhar, Eipic brings us five teenagers who band together to start their own musical revolution in an abandoned post office. It’s written by the London-based Corkonian Mike O’Leary, a former writer for Misfits on E4.
It being the centenary year, the show has echoes of 1916, as the teens make music to the background of the town’s Rising centenary celebrations.
We follow as one of the gang, Sully, hears about an online music video competition, and decides it could be his way of escaping his daily begrudgery. He assembles his own team and they set about getting a set together.
The series’ producer Ciara Nic Chormaic described Eipic as turning “all the usual stereotypes of Irish drama on their heads”.
It is the first post watershed teen drama to be broadcast on Irish television and was devised to capture contemporary Irish teenagers’ lives… with a hint of magic realism and big laughs thrown in for good measure.
Penned by Flann O’Brien after Electric Picnic
As series writer, Mike O’Leary said that to him, “[Eipic] should look like TV drama penned by Flann O’Brien on the Monday after Electric Picnic”, so it’s no wonder, then, that the person who encourages the character Sully to take part in the music competition is a described as a ‘mysterious online friend with a resemblance to Michael Collins’.
O’Leary was approached by Magamedia, the Galway-based production company, to write the script.
“We knew we wanted to do a musical comedy drama,” he said. The aim was to explore the idea of how teens today living in rural towns ” straddle two worlds [because of] the internet and social media”, said O’Leary.
“On the one hand they’re stuck in the back of beyond, and on the other hand they’re plugged into this global network.”
A war of independence
The 1916 connection is also echoed in how the teens experience the world around them.
“I know it’s a different war, but your teenage years are all a long war of independence,” said O’Leary. “I think what a lot of the best youth dramas strive for is the relationship between the adult characters and the teenage characters, and a lot of our adult characters in the series are highly flawed kids.”
I totally related to it in my own experience. Growing up is a series of realising adults aren’t infallible and they are really like great, grown-up kids. And that’s the tough times – that you know that your parents or figures of authority are nearly as flawed as you, but [because of] some weird unspoken rule they have a voice and you don’t. I think that’s the frustrating thing about being a kid, and that’s what we tried to reflect.
Rebellion and music
They also felt that music had a large role to play in teenage rebellion. “Going back to the dawn of the teenager, music has always been the weapon of choice in rebelling, so it was very important to reflect that,” said O’Leary.
“That’s the one thing that many of us had growing up at our disposal, our musical taste, and that was how we stalked out our independence.”
There is no original music performed by the teens, but all the tracks – like The Jam’s Town Called Malice, Frankly Mr Shankly by The Smiths and Video Girl by FKA Twigs - have been translated as gaeilge.
The soundtrack, however, does feature new Irish music, something that was important to the team.
A journey back to Irish
O’Leary’s script was written in English and translated into Irish, but he had a sense of what would and wouldn’t work when going from one language to another. “The fact we all have a rudimentary grasp of the language helped, so you knew to avoid portmanteaus, or certain tools that would usually be at your disposal weren’t.”
Working on an Irish series made O’Leary realise how much he regretted not engaging more with the language, and since filming he has started taking Irish classes in the Camden Irish centre in London.
He was full of praise for TG4, who he described as “great, because they allowed us to be completely batshit crazy with the content and the themes which we explored”.
O’Leary studied theatre in Trinity, joining a comedy group which included members of Dead Cat Bounce, and comedian Aisling Bea. He then went to London to undertake a Masters in TV.
Though he described writing as something which “can be a real abject existence”, O’Leary is drawn to the craft.
“The whole process of world creation is very alluring,” he said. “I think I happened into TV at a very exciting time. It’s where it’s at at the moment in terms of prestige television.”
He started off writing online content for E4, before going on to write Misfit’s episodes. He’s currently working on another E4 production.
‘The stories we were trying to tell are important’
The fact that Eipic is on post-watershed meant that the content could be more adult than your average teen drama.
“It was strange because it started off as not post-watershed,” said O’Leary. “It was going to be 6pm for a younger audience, and I think my writing sensibilities naturally pulled it into that post-watershed timeslot.”
“The stories we were trying to tell necessitated a post-watershed time, and TG4 were amazing about that,” he said.
“The stories we were trying to tell are important and timely and really speak to that generation. The real kiss of death for writing about teens is to write from the point of view of an older person,” he cautioned. “The minute they can sniff that stuff out at 100 yards they won’t buy into it.”
They also didn’t want to shy away from the language these teenagers would use in everyday life.
“You want a realness and a rawness to it,” said O’Leary. “Authenticity – that was the big word we would really strive to reach.”
You can watch a clip of the resulting programme in the trailer below:
Eipic airs on TG4 at 10pm for six weeks from Thursday 4 February. It was produced by Galway-based Magamedia with funding from TG4, the BAI and Section 481.
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“Nyberg is the first witness to appear at the inquiry’s public hearings. In 2011 a report he compiled on the baking crisis here found that the willingness of banks to issue high-value loans for risky commercial property was a fundamental cause of the banking crash.”
1.Why should the tax payer have anything to do with this?
2. The Anglo Gang were busy lending money to each other to cover the above as proven in court…..result …..community service and acquittal
The Establishment have no intention of exposing what happened because they are port of it.
Oh so it was ignorance was it ? So we’re too stupid to believe that there are thieves among us – he expects us to buy that line does he ?
Knew his onions always depend on an onion man to see it right
Nyberg is correct that it wasn’t ‘criminality’ that caused the banking crisis. The financial sector largely formulates the rule book which notionally regulates that business and so it’s extremely difficult for them perpetrate an actual crime while they vandalize the entire global economy.
Nyberg is mistaken though if he believes that it was ignorance which led to the collapse. There was some ‘useful idiots’ at national level in political and regulatory positions which can be scapegoated but those at the top echelons of the corporate world knew exactly what was unfolding and the inevitable consequences from many years out.
This excellent documentary describes how the world’s central banks have deliberately engineered multiple financial & economic crises in order to further the interests of the 1% who benefit disproportionately in both booms and busts. This is starkly demonstrated in the current recession where the world’s billionaires have doubled in number since 2008.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Ac7ap_MAY&feature=youtu.be
The ensuing crises are then used to enforce ‘structural reform’ which sees political, social, legal and economic concessions wrung from the victim nations for the additional benefit of the capitalist elite and at the expense of labour (the vast majority of us). The Fiscal treaty is a recent example of ‘structural reform’ which has transferred massive fiscal and budgetary powers from the elected governments of the nation states to unelected institutions of the EU.
The ECB’s deliberate role in the property bubble expansions and inevitable busts of Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece is addressed from 1 hour 20 minutes in. The ECB or any of the national central banks could at any time have restricted the credit expansion which fuelled the bubbles.
In this context, it’s no surprise that the ECB ‘does not see itself in a position to participate’ in the banking enquiry.
“The ECB’s deliberate role in the property bubble expansions and inevitable busts of Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece”….
Any chance I could borrow some tin foil from your hat to cover the Turkey on Christmas morning?
The tinfoil hats were right about Shannon and Torturing – funny how they keep getting proven the truthtellers and those who ridicule them the fools !
They were wrong about a lot of things too. Next you’ll be telling me how I’ve got 9/11 all wrong and you’ve seen a documentary that isn’t afraid to tell the truth.
Can we all just agree to take one side in these arguments. Either the political establishment are all incompetent buffoons or they are maniacal geniuses hell bent on making more money for themselves through bankrupting a nation.
I’ll give you either claim and debate that with you but I won’t stand for people arguing both at once.
Ciaran,
You may want to contact the man below about getting that tinfoil.
Professor Richard Werner is Director of the Centre for Banking, Finance and Sustainable Development at the University of Southampton and author of two best-selling books on banking and economics. He is credited with popularizing the term ‘quantitative easing’ in 1994 whilst Chief Economist at Jardine Fleming Securities (Asia),following a spell as visiting research fellow at the Japanese Central Bank.
As he’s the one who had leveled those charges against the ECB in the documentary.
Or maybe you have a greater expertise in this area and can explain how grossly mistaken he is?
Ciaran I won’t tell you anything – you are, I fear, beyond my help !
Coddler – I wasn’t assaulting Mr Werner, he’s an excellent Economist, but let’s not paint him as a saviour just yet.
I was challenging the phrase you used relating to the ECB’s “deliberate role” in the crashes in Europe.
For example, I could buy coffee from Butlers every day of the week and when reporting on a story you can say, it was my deliberate actions which contributed to the closing of the Insomnia cafe around the corner. It’s not that it’s wrong, but they way you say it implies so much ruthlessness that I’d hate to see that much evil in everyone’s actions.
It was an asset grab by the global banking cartel that was facilitated by our idiot representatives. We’ll never get any answers, these people literally run the world.
‘Give me control of a nations money supply and I care not who makes her laws ‘ – Mayer Amschel Rothschild
On a side note, there were/are a small number of countries whose money supply was not controlled by these people, they are/were egypt, libya, iraq, iran, north korea, china, syria. Anyone ever play connect the dots?
Paul who are the global banking cartel? I’d be interested in examining your theory but want to see where you started.
The ecb, federal reserve, imf, the bank of International Settlements, the bilderberg group, the trilateral commission. Basically any of the groups that make the decisions of sovereign states behind closed doors. They also have the power to issue currency at will, which is why they end up with all the assets, monopoly money in exchange for an actual physical asset, scam of the century.
Banking – the Greatest Scam on Earth: http://youtu.be/G9IH-XKQpOI
Paul, you know that quote is apocryphal. The correct quote has been reworked, refers to the British empire, and was apparently said by Nathan Rothschild. Interestingly, a 10 second Google search revealed that.
Irrelevant, would you like to dispute the meat of the argument rather than the first name of the author of a quote being incorrect?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqvKjsIxT_8
the above should explain it for you Charles ……
No Paul, you open up with a misquote wrongly attributed and entirely out of context. The ‘meat’ as you call it will require more than 2 minutes watching youtube. Dismissing your inaccuracy as irrelevant seems odd – you did leave it as a punctuation to your first comment.
is there anything else you’ve gotten wrong?
No problem Charles, if you want to get hung up on a misquote, fine, don’t take the the red pill and continue living in ignorance, it’s your life.
Again, no Paul. I’ll do a bit of research and not look for ‘facts’ which confirm my own prejudice. Mind you once you start discussing red pills ill probably leave it there. Where ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise etc…
Thanks dermot
I presume you’re aware the red pill is from the movie The Matrix, he takes it in order to see the world as it really is, rather than the fabrication that he has believed up until then. I recommend watching Dermots link ^.
You’re welcome Charles – no probs !
There is no question in my mind that it was a Pyramid scheme played out not just in Ireland but a number of countries. Central Banking is a pretty small global club. The Central Bank of Japan deliberately created a lending bubble in the 80s which they knew was not going into productive investment, but asset price inflation (in property & land). We know this because commercial banks in Japan told their Central Bank that meeting the new lending targets (new money creation as loans) could not be met otherwise. (ECB and other CB’s didn’t issue ‘targets’ like the BoJ, but the point is that as the Bankers’ Bank, they have all the data and monitor banks’ lending activities.)
This led to Japan’s inevitable property bust & stagnation in the 90s, which thru’ flip-flopping periods of weak and incompetent (neo liberal) policy responses has largely continued to the present day. Tho’ Japan did at least manage to stave off a depression and mass unemployment on the scale of the present Euro zone mess. Two major reasons for this. Japan’s bust was mostly an isolated one (was it a trial run?), so it’s key export markets remained in operation. And they (rightly) allowed the Gov deficit & debt to climb to counter the loss of private domestic sector consumer & investor demand (spending).
(People should note that Japanese Gov debt is now over 250% of GDP, twice that of US, UK etc. but because they issue their own sovereign currency, bond ‘vigilantism’ has no power over interest rates, which remain near zero.)
Professor Richard Werner (Southampton University UK), formerly employed in Finance in Japan during the period explains the details in a long-ish but well worth watching video, recently released.
“Princes of the Yen: Central Banks and the Transformation of the Economy.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Ac7ap_MAY&feature=youtu.be
Anyhow… there is no question whatever that other Central Bankers did not know what happened in Japan 25yrs ago, and precisely why. There cannot be any question (as Nyberg confirms) that they did not see that completely unsustainable asset price inflation was rampant in a number of Euro countries, and others like the US.
Even if the least plausible explanation, that they were simply (very highly paid!) incompetent fools is true, then there should be inquiries and mass sackings of senior officials in every major institution involved, including the ECB and EU Commision economics sections.
But was it all a Bankers’ conspiracy, as Paul suggests? That is certainly a possibility, but is hardly necessary to explain the kind of ‘Groupthink’ collusion that Nyberg suggests.
What the banking and wealthy elites have long, long, known is that instability and periodic booms and busts are highly profitable in +both+ phases for Capital owning classes who know when to get out of the losing plays in time. (Ask any Finance and Commodity trader, and they will tell you that ‘voltallity’ is their friend, number one, and number two, if they’re being honest, the game is rigged by the big players.)
Economic stability is in the interests of majority citizens, who need things like steady jobs & incomes to live.
But for the 1%ers, big Capital owners (not the small fry wannabe investors who often get burned), booms and busts are the way to hammer Labour’s share of productivity, buy up assets at bust prices & force juicy privatisations of public assets to gouge rents going forward. All exactly as we see happening these last years.
However, there is also another interesting aspect to this recent banking Pyramid scam, and that is the way that ‘risk’ in all the new ‘securitised’ products used in Finance was supposedly offset using special insurance type devices, like CDS (Credit Default Swaps) etc. These have two effects. One is to enable banks to leverage even greater lending (new money creation) into the system. The other is to ensure a perfect Domino system, so that any major default actually risks bringing down the whole system, in a way that is incalculable in any useful timeframe. With the result that bail-outs of their losses by public authorities are virtually guaranteed.
And what has happened since the 2008 crash to reform any of this, in Europe of globally?
Absolutely nothing…. that tells you all you need to know, really, about who owns our sham ‘democracies’.
I think my invitation to the ‘party’ got lost in the post. I’m still waiting for it.
Don’t worry, you missed nothing except a long drawn out 6 year hangover.
The Party started last Wednesday when the establishment showed they have something to hide by deploying so many Gardaí – major, major faux pas that , now everyone is wondering what it is they are so prepared to fight to protect ….
Remember the highest dole and OAPs in Europe, remember the highest children’s allowance in Europe, remember the €6000 per year for each child under 6 for childcare costs, remember the low level of taxation,
I often read here of the bad memories of people regarding FF. the Irish people have very selective memories.
Kevin you’re also leaving out the fact that FF got lambasted by the opposition for not cutting taxes and giving back more during the boom years.Do you really believe the present incumbents would have behaved any different had they been in power during the years in question.
@Kevin.it was an extra one grand a year for childcare which would have been better spent on providing tax relief for childcare. Amazingly, this was paid even for children who lived outside the state.
You can be sure if it was the lower/working class who caused this financial crash it would not be about “Ignorance” and would be focused on “Criminality” .
That is the stated position of FG and they have punatively leglislated again the ordinary citizen to cement their opinion.
Culmination of years of mistakes, there’s your answer no need to spend millions of taxpayers money.
Nobody will go to jail so a total waste of time and money.
This process was no mistake.
Intention debt trapping of the entire nation. The bad debt never to be paid dumped on the tax payer after holding the country ransom.
The untouched fractional or no reserve ponzi money system cycle has restarted again – loans using money that does not exist. Ignorance of the system guarantees its success.
The so called “boom bust cycle” is an asset liquidation machine that also traps people into debt slavery – the citizens labour and produce controlled by the money system.
The Central bank had a responsibility to jack up rates in 2003/2004 which it failed to do. They could have told the banks to do this irrespective of what the ECB rate was.
Bertie said recently the Central bank told him there was no problem and the banks were well capitalised, every thing was rosey.
Is there such a thing as criminal negligence in Ireland?
Capitalised with what? Credit default swabs and other such junk theoretical vapours.
The money system is a tool to control the livestock work force and acquire assets for the central bankers who run it.
Plantation,
“The Central bank had a responsibility to jack up rates in 2003/2004 which it failed to do. They could have told the banks to do this irrespective of what the ECB rate was.”
We’ve an open economy, meaning if one bank or all of the banks did that, they would have been undercut by foreign banks entering the market the following day. As ideas go though, fair play, I’ve never heard anyone suggest that one.
I’m going to ruin your day, but you’ve only gone and proposed what FF did!!! They couldn’t force banks to raise interest rates (to reduce spending and increase savings) so what did they do, that’s right, the SSIA’s.
So rest assured Plantation Watch, you should have been an FF TD all along.
The ‘baking crisis ‘ was pretty serious alright , the price of pastry was off the chart
stop telling the irish people the truth they don’t like it they prefer to hold onto their self made victim card
The Irish are going to start with the thieves at home and then advance the search globally ….it has nothing to do with nationality – it is all down to profession !
Bs it was the establishment closing ranks
“It doesn’t mean they partied but means the boom and bubble made them feel their lives were better.”???
Yes Mr Nyberg, I always feel that “my life is better” when private corrupt/criminal banks run up huge debts and bust themselves leaving me to pick up the tab.
Get away with that PR rubbish you pathetic old bought out puppet.
Who’s payroll are you on Nyberg???
So the basis of what you are saying is that we all “felt better” because corrupt/criminal amounts of debt was borrowed by reckless corrupt/criminal 3rd parties, which in turn would be foisted on us to pay back for them??
Ohh Peter We always feel so much better when corrupt/criminal TD’s, Banks and Government officials sentence generations of Irish people to eternal debt slavery.
Old Pathetic Fool.
A pitiful Yokel wheeled out by the vested interest to gibber espouse their propaganda.
A bought out pathetic forgettable old fool.
Bit angry are we E? Where were you between 1999 and 2008? What were you doing? How many holidays or weekends away did you have? If you did not have an easier life in those years you were doing something very wrong. Just because you dont like what Nyberg said does not mean he is wrong or bought. Plenty of people were saying the same thing in the lead up to the 2007 election and Bertie told them to go and commit suicide or grow bluebells.
Between the bankers and politicians they must have some amount of dirt on each other so its prob best for both of them to just bury this and move on..shower of corrupt w#nkers
Angry?
That I am not Tomas.
However I will not be told how I should feel, thank you.
Particularly how I should feel when corrupt/criminal governments and private banks are throwing around money that they knew couldn’t be paid back.
Criminally negligent rather than just ignorant imo
another crash on the way soon
Seriously the ordinary Joe soap can’t be blamed on this! If I’d been told you can only have so much money to borrow so be it, you need guidance in borrowing and the banks failed many big time here. We shoykd be able to trust their stress tests and be guided accordingly. The ordinary Joe soap just wants a home and some nice things …the banks should do their job, said no and explained why !!
why would anyone believe a word any of these charlatans says ? they are blaming the ordinary people for the greed and excesses of the few , they f’d up and we are the ones who took the hit and are still taking it ! this ‘inquiry ‘ is jkust another political cover up .,no one will be charged, no one will serve time, the only ones getting any sort of sentence from this will be us the normal man (or woman) in the street , we will pay for their ‘mistakes’ for a long time to come !.
Stupid comment.
Our lives were better? Because the rich who abused the system and caused the banking crisis let their table scraps fall down to us therefore we should be thankful?
So your live wasn’t better? And that’s the fault of someone else?
Plenty of experience of how it works – lost most of the family to it. Also plenty of experience of people (not necessarily him) being conniving enough to blame it on the guy who can’t speak out.
Either through agreement or convenience, he got to make the call that our grandkids (& possibly theirs) will be paying for.
The fact that the documentation went missing and the guy who could explain it all was dead within a short timeframe is all to convenient to ignore.
@ OU812, that has got to be the most stupid comment i’ve ever read on here. You obviously have no comprehension of how cancer works on the body and still throw stones at a dead man.” Ignorance” it said in the article.
@ OU812, Sorry for your losses.
The central bank and regulators confirmed the solvency of the banks, therefore his call.
Documentation did not dissappear, just resting somewhere till needed.
Personally, i think more scrutiny should be placed on the Civil Service elite, as our politicians are just term puppets
I did not know that it was us citizens who ran the government. We were in charge of the regulations. We told the banks how much money to loan out. Silly me. What do we need all these tds for . Regulators or bankers for if its the citizens who seemed to be running everything if its our fault. Any increases given by the government at the time was a government decision. They were in charge. The regulators were meant to be in charge of regulations not the citizens. The banks were meant to have people in charge who should have known by someones income whether they could afford a loan its there business after all not the man or woman looking for a loan .so its bit silly saying we are all to blame when were not all in they know on how all these work.
I watched Peter Nybergs statement today. Factual but not all issues were addressed!
The Regulator did not do his job. The Bank Directors did not do their job. The Politicians dud not do their job.
All these guilty parties were retired on big pensions.
NOT ONE was accused of gross mismanagement, not one was accused of “over trading”, not one was sent to Jail!
why?
They all broke the Laws of our Land yet nobody is held accountable!
To convert UNSECURED Bondholders into a Sovereign Debt was a bigger crime!
Why did the Government not convert the Bondholders into Bank Shares.
If they did the innocent Taxpayers would not now be paying their debts!
Our elected Politicians are to blame for their gross neglect and incompetence!
When will the guilty be prosecuted, if ever?
Fine Gael wake up!
Irish Crash Causes:
1. Philosophy not taught in Irish secondary schools, like France, to give citizens sound rational framework for good sane judgement in their personal and work lives. (Nice beneficial side effect of producing best software engineers)
2. Universities not upgraded to Techs. Mortar invented by Joseph Aspdin in 1824.
Contains Sand, Cement and Water (not metered). No Platinum in it.
QED
- Recession Spancil Hill . verse 3-6 of 74!
I used to drive a Beamer boys!
Upholstered plush and deep
To take the kids to ballet class
The Aupair had a Jeep
The missus drove an SUV
A vehicle meant for the sthicks
To shop every day at the Mall in Bray
And take Latte in Harvey Nix
A wicker bag her mother used
to do the weekly shop
But unless I bought her Prada
She used to throw a strop
But an age old problem was resolved
Put a end to all the bitchin’
With New York shops and Granite tops
We threw out every fuppin’ kitchen ……
I spend the whole of 2006 coked outta my mind
To give it a crime-writer’s twist should we not go down to his grave and test for radiation ?
Agree an ignorant comment.
Buildings slum apartments in the middle of nowhere, renovating inner city pubs, building hotels in no go areas does not an economic mirical make. There are very few commodities on earth that are priceless and that includes dublin council houses an cardboard apartment blocks. How did we get so conned an deluded. During this time I went to see emmon gilmore re affordable housing. He suggested I considered buying a house that at the time was over 100k. I was only earning 35k also the house was in an drug fueled, no go part of th town. He seemed mystified when I pointed out that I didn’t earn enough for this and said if I reallyput th effort in I’d definitely find a mortgage. When I suggested that it would be nonsensical to pay this to live knee deep in drug pusher. He lookedso insulted ud think id told him his kids were ugly.
It’s completely cynical how the ECB/ Troika are now trying to offload the blame on the Irish people by telling us ‘you all partied’ tough luck. What’s actually happening is Fianna Fáil grossly mismanaged our economy and fuelled the property bubble for their builder and banking buddies, while promising ‘free money’ to gullible members of the public.
The German and French banks equally cashed in but when the bubble burst, Ms Merkel was quick to put 100% of the bad debts on the Irish people, with the likes of Trichet acting as her enforcers by effectively blackmailing us into submission.
FWIW, anyone who ever gives FF a vote again is worse than stupid.
Well I didn’t party!
have your say