Fair City

Fair City is an Irish television soap opera which has been broadcast on RTÉ One since 1989. Produced by the public service broadcaster RTE, it first aired on Monday, 18 September 1989. It has won several awards and is both the most popular and the longest running Irish drama serial. Plots centre on the domestic and professional lives of the residents of Carrigstown, a fictional suburb of the Northside part of the city of Dublin. The area encompasses a restaurant, pub, garage, corner shop, community centre, charity shop, surgery, boxing club (Esker/Carrigstown Boxing Club) and various businesses. Originally aired as one half-hour episode per week for a limited run, the show is now broadcast year round on RTÉ One in four 30-minute episodes per week, at 20:30 on Sunday, 20:00 on Tuesday, 20:30 on Thursday and 19:30 on Friday. Fair City is the most watched drama in Ireland, with average viewing figures of 550,000. Devised by executive producer Margaret Gleeson and series producer Paul Cusack, it has remained a significant programme in terms of RTÉ's success and audience share, and also in the history of Irish television drama, tackling many controversial and taboo issues previously unseen on Irish television, such as rape and domestic violence.