''Laochra Gael'' (; "''Heroes of the

Gaels The Gaels ( ; ; ; ) are an Insular Celts, Insular Celtic ethnolinguistic group native to Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man. They are associated with the Goidelic languages, Gaelic languages: a branch of the Celtic languages comprising ...

''") is an Irish television programme. With the 2022 series its twentieth, the show profiles and celebrates some of the greatest names in

Gaelic games Gaelic games () are a set of sports played worldwide, though they are particularly popular in Ireland, where they originated. They include Gaelic football, hurling, Gaelic handball and rounders. Football and hurling, the most popular of the s ...

(

hurling Hurling (, ') is an outdoor Team sport, team game of ancient Gaelic culture, Gaelic Irish origin, played by men and women. One of Ireland's native Gaelic games, it shares a number of features with Gaelic football, such as the field and goa ...

Gaelic football Gaelic football (; short name '')'', commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA, or football, is an Irish team sport. A form of football, it is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score ...

ladies' Gaelic football Ladies' Gaelic football () is an Irish team sport for women. It is the women's equivalent of Gaelic football. Ladies' football is organised by the Ladies' Gaelic Football Association. Two teams of 15 players kick or hand-pass a round ball toward ...

and

camogie Camogie ( ; ) is an Irish stick-and-ball team sport played by women. Camogie is played by 100,000 women in Ireland and worldwide, largely among Irish communities. A variant of the game "hurling" (which is played by men only), it is organised ...

) since the 1920s; most players are from the 1980s or later due to the lack of archive footage from earlier players. Each of the programmes contains interviews with the subject,

archive footage Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures, and file footage is film or video footage that can be used again in other films. Stock footage is beneficial to filmmakers as it saves shooting new material. A single piece of stock ...

of their exploits on the pitch and an assessment from

GAA Gaa may refer to: * Gaa language, a language of Nigeria * gaa, the ISO 639 code for the Ga language of Ghana GAA may stand for: Compounds * Glacial (water-free), acetic acid * Acid alpha-glucosidase, also known as glucosidase, alpha; acid, an e ...

experts, friends, rivals and teammates. ''Laochra Gael'' is produced by Nemeton TV and broadcast on the

Irish language Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic ( ), is a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family. It is a member of the Goidelic languages of the Insular Celtic sub branch of the family and is indigenous ...

television station,

TG4 TG4 (; , ) is an Irish free-to-air public service television channel. It launched on 31 October 1996 and is available online and through its on-demand service TG4 Player in Ireland and beyond. TG4 was initially known as (TnaG), before bein ...

Episode list

Series 1 – 2001

Series 2 – 2002

Series 3 – 2004

Series 4 – 2004/05

Series 5 – 2005/06

Series 6 – 2007

Series 7 – 2008

Series 8 – 2010: Na Coimhlintí Móra (The Sagas)

Series 8 featured some of the most well-known rivalries in the games.

Series 9 – 2011: Na Coimhlintí Móra (The Sagas)

Series 9 featured more of the most well-known rivalries in the games.

Series 10 – 2012

Series 11 – 2013

Series 12 – 2014

Series 13 – 2015

Series 14 – 2016

Series 15 – 2017

Series 16 – 2018

This season saw a switch to an hour-long format.

Series 17 – 2019

Series 18 – 2020

Series 19 – 2021

This season was broadcast in two parts of six episodes. The second part of the nineteenth series began on 25 March 2021.

Series 20 – 2022

Series 21 – 2023

Series 22 – 2024

Series 23 – 2025

References

Irish Film & TV Research Online - Trinity College Dublin

External links

Official site"'It was put out as an accolade at funerals that a Laochra Gael had been done on them' - Irial Mac Murchú talks to The42 about the concept behind this iconic GAA documentary series"
{{TG4 Shows Gaelic games television series Irish history television shows Irish-language television shows 2010s Irish television series TG4 original programming Documentary television series about sports 2001 Irish television series debuts