‘Single-Handed’ Returns to RTÉ One | The Irish Film & Television Network

The new episodes entitled ‘The Drowning Man’ marks the third series of the drama which was filmed on location in the West of Ireland last year and is co produced by the UK’s Touchpaper Television Productions and Dublin’s Element Pictures.

Having been forced to leave Dublin after a serious altercation with one of his senior officers back in Dublin and transferred back to Conamara, the drama takes up with Garda Sergeant Jack Driscoll (Owen McDonnell) enjoying his new found respect in the district since the death of his father in ‘Single-Handed 2’.

When Jack receives a midnight call to investigate the drowning of a local teenager on an isolated beach, he finds himself in the midst of a Dublin-run undercover drugs operation. Jack’s search for justice for the boy’s death is met by resistance from the Dublin detectives as they aim to bring down the bigger national prize of the drug traffickers. Matters become even more complicated when Jack’s former love arrives on the scene as an undercover operative. When Jack discovers that the undercover operation has a mole, he becomes his chief’s only hope of bringing the traffickers to justice and soon realises that there is a lot more to the accidental drowning of a young man off Conamara.

Irish cast to join McDonnell include Ruth McCabe (Any Time Now), David Herlihy (The Clinic), Bríaín Gleeson (Trouble in Paradise), Marcella Plunkett (Bachelors Walk), Padraic Delaney (The Wind that Shakes the Barley), Michael McElhatton (Spin the Bottle) and Owen Roe (Cromwell in Ireland).

Anthony Byrne returns to helm the series having been the director on ‘Single-Handed 2’ and has recently completed a feature length drama based on Enda O’Brien’s novel ‘Wild Decembers’ for RTÉ. Produced by Clare Alan and with Rob Pursey of Touchpaper Television, who are also overseeing production on ‘Wild Decembers’, the drama is scripted by Barry Simner writer of ‘Single-Handed’ 1 and 2. DOP for the shoot was Darren Tiernan (The Honeymooners); production designer was Anna Rickard (George Gently) and editing was overseen by Isobel Stephenson (Garage).

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