TV review: Swindlers: The Thomas Byrne Affair is worth a watch

There are multiple red-flags ignored during Byrne’s career, not least that he wore a dickie-bow in UCD.

Swindlers: The Thomas Byrne Affair available on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player

Thomas Byrne started out as a solicitor in the mid-1990s, working out of an extension to his family home in Walkinstown. His business caught the wave of the Celtic Tiger, when half the country became property developers. He ended up facing 51 charges of theft, fraud, and forgery.

It’s all in Swindlers: The Thomas Byrne Affair (RTÉ One and RTÉ Player). It’s as much a story about 1990s Ireland as it is about Thomas Byrne. The story is laid out by Terry and Matthew Connors in Walkinstown who started buying and flipping properties so they could retire at 50, with Byrne doing the paperwork as their portfolio grew up to 14 properties.