Irish Examiner view: Gangster world of kill and kin

Ongoing battle to dismantle high-level crime

Episode 4 of the RTE drama Kin.

It’s not only in the field of investigative journalism that the State broadcaster is providing compelling viewing right now. Its showpiece drama, Kin, attracted more than 500,000 viewers, most of them young, for its first showing. With a heavyweight cast including Ciaran Hinds, villain specialist Aiden Gillen ( Little Finger, John Boy, Aberama Gold, all grist to his mill), and Charlie Cox, RTÉ has another international hit on its hands to rival Love/Hate. And good luck to it.

Quite what Dublin makes of another representation of it as a cross between gangsta paradise and 1980s Medellín lite is another matter and the comprehensive interview this weekend between our Security Correspondent Cormac O’Keeffe and the Garda’s top crimebuster Assistant Commissioner John O’Driscoll showed where the line between fiction and fact is drawn.