TV review: Craftspeople of West Cork pose tricky questions in Masters: Keepers of the Tradition

Dick Barrett’s memorial in West Cork is more than a handsome work of art. It raises a tricky question too – is it ever worth killing anyone for anything?

Stonemason Julia Gebel, RTE Show Masters: Keepers of the Tradition

Masters: Keepers of the Tradition (RTÈ One and RTÈ Player) weaves in a few plot lines. Episode one of six about local craftspeople, it’s the story of Julia Gebel, a German stonemason who fell for Ireland after working on the restoration of Cormac’s Chapel at the Rock of Cashel.

It’s also about Dick Barrett, a teacher from West Cork and member of the IRA during the War of Independence, who was executed in Mountjoy by Free State forces as a reprisal killing during the Civil War. It’s about a lump of 350 million-year-old stone carved out of a quarry in Kilkenny. And in the end it makes you wonder if killing is ever justified.