TV review: Ireland's Rich List 2021

Richard Curran presented Ireland’s Rich List 2021 on Monday

Ireland’s Rich List 2021 (RTE One, Monday 9:35pm and RTE Player) reminded me of a bunch of Margaret Thatcher lovers that were in UCC during the mid 80s, when I was there . 

They joined the Progressive Democrats, had the dress sense of a 45-year-old accountant, and even launched their own college newspaper, which if memory serves me carried an interview with Pope John Paul II in its first edition. 

We scoffed at their tidy hair and grown-up ways. It turned out they were the future.

They would have loved the latest incarnation of Ireland’s Rich List. It’s more like a cult than a TV show, where salivating commentators talk about rich people (mainly men) as if they were sent to us by the Gods. 

The show focuses on how they made the money, with very little mention of how they spend it. Richard Curran narrates from a castle with a blue sports car parked outside, but that’s a five-year-old boy’s notion of wealth . I wanted to know what it’s like to be rich, rather than how these people got rich.

The only insight was a photo of one of our rich men playing tennis with Richard Branson, causing one of the talking heads to gush, “And sure why wouldn’t he, I’d do the same if I had that kind of money.”

Really? You’d dedicate your life to meeting Richard Branson. The man engaged in a willy-waving contest with Jeff Bezos to see which one of them can be the first into space. And here’s another problem with a show like this – there is not a lot of love around for the one percent.

Ireland’s Rich List 2021 feels tone-deaf in 2021. Commenting on a business that makes animal pharmaceuticals, journalist Nick Webb noted “You can squeeze more burgers out of a cow, what’s not to like there?” I don’t know – ask a cow. Or a vegan.

In fairness to Nick Webb, he seems to enjoy triggering lefties and that makes for good telly. But the format feels tired and a touch lazy at this stage. Rather than count down some very tedious businesses, they should just focus on the one or two stories that made me sit up and watch. 

One was about a guy called Norman Crowley in Wicklow who puts electric engines into vintage cars for celebs, while also planning to put Irish car-making on the map. The other was about the Collison brothers from Limerick. They may be about to overtake Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk as the richest people in the world, according to Nick Webb. 

Maybe he was just trying to antagonise lefties again. But it made for good telly. So, more of that (and Nick) next time out. And any chance you could let us know how they spend their money? That’s what we really want to know.