Richard Hogan: Here's why watching people lying on Traitors Ireland is fascinating

Traitors is great TV – trust me on that

‘Traitors Ireland’, presented by Siobhán McSweeney, centre, is a reality show of duplicity set in a castle and based on a Dutch programme.

It finally launched: The television show Traitors Ireland.

Last Sunday, on RTÉ 1 at 9:30pm, we all got the first instalment of Ireland’s version of the hit show The Traitors.

The response from the public has been overwhelmingly positive. I have rarely witnessed excitement for a new television show like I have for this one. Posters all over Dublin, buses driving past with Siobhán McSweeney’s face on them and the logo of Traitors behind her, the radio interviews, the chat on public transport about the show, and the buzz on social media.

It all had the feel of the latest Harry Potter book. It has been remarkable. People wondered if Ireland could produce contestants interesting enough to captivate an audience.

I wondered the same thing. We are Irish, and so we don’t care for conflict. We don’t like drama.

Or so you think. We got our answer within minutes of the show airing.

It was enthralling television. I was fortunate enough to work behind the scenes on the show with all the participants.

So, I heard all of their inner thoughts before they entered in to the game, and, let me tell you, they are fascinating people.

Far from not wanting conflict or worried about how they would be portrayed, they were all eager to get stuck in and play the game.

The Traitors Ireland is enthralling television

The premise of Traitors makes for brilliant television. The majority of people in the game are Faithfuls, which means they are not lying about who they are, but rather telling the truth.

The traitors among them have to hide their true identity, while they systematically go about eliminating all potential threats, until they are the last one standing.

If they manage to do that, they will win the tidy sum of €50,000. That’s not bad for a day’s treachery.

I watched the show unfold live, in front of my eyes. The psychology of the game is incredible. Each one of the contestants comes in to the game with a plan, and, like boxer Mike Tyson says, ‘everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face’.

How true. You can see the contestants’ game plans evaporate in front of their eyes as they get pulled in to inner circles and friendships.

What really captivates people watching the show is how the traitors go about the business of concealing their true, diabolical identity.

Of course, we all have to navigate the traitors among us, the ones that twist a little bit of the truth to suit themselves.

They are the ones that stir drama, constantly creating volatile dynamics among their friendship group for their own gain.

It might not be for €50,000, but they do get some pay off. I think we all have known someone like that in our lives.

Watching Traitors Ireland will help you spot someone who is a little less authentic and a little bit more Machiavellian.

Detecting lies through body language isn’t an exact science, but there are very clear signs that someone is being duplicitous.

The greatest signs are microexpressions. We do these involuntarily, like shaking our head to confirm something while our words are saying the opposite.

Other examples are a brief smile when reporting something negative, or a little glance to the right, accessing the creative side of the brain when constructing a fabrication.

We generally look to the left when we are recalling a true memory. These are little telltale signs that you are in the presence of someone who is not being truthful.

It is actually very hard to lie consistently and get away with it. I think that’s what the contestants find from the start of the show. The incredible pressure to keep up the façade of being a faithful is exhausting.

Watching Traitors Ireland will help you spot someone who is a little less authentic

The greatest liars among us are constantly falling over their own stories. A liar has to check and double check they are not deviating from a previously told lie. It is hard to remember all of the ‘facts’ of a fabricated story, while a truthful person only has the one story to recall.

That is a far easier position to be in. I think that is why most contestants want to start as faithfuls and then towards the end become traitors. It is a very difficult task to maintain deception for such a long time. While avoiding eye contact isn’t always a sign of someone lying, blinking might be.

Understanding how someone normally acts is also very important, if you are trying to observe any deviance from baseline behaviours.

As a parent, you know pretty quickly what your children’s tells are: Looking at the floor, scratching their left eye, pausing, feigned tears, and things like that. You learn those tells over years of living together.

But watching Traitors Ireland will also show you how people go about deception, and also how those who are telling the truth sometimes struggle, because they think they are going to be perceived as traitors.

It’s fascinating to watch someone who is telling the truth stumble over themselves and create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Being honest can be tricky when you feel you are being scrutinised. I remember my brother going red in the face when questioned about who ate all the cookies. He hadn’t. I had, and had to confess my crime to let him off the hook!

So, we all have a relationship with honesty and dishonesty. Traitors Ireland has been a great success so far. It is wonderful to see such investment in Irish television.

In the age of TikTok, and those abbreviated short videos, we need a show like The Traitors to illuminate the importance and relevance of good telly.