TV3’s new 1916 centenary programme ‘Trial of the Century’ is an imagined, alternative history, which grants Pádraig Pearse the trial he never received in real life.
The three-part drama special stars Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as the rebel leader.
Other names cast in the production include Mark Huberman as George Gavan Duffy, Andrew Bennett as lead prosecutor Sebastian Banks, Aoibhinn McGinnity as mum Catherine Foster, Denis Conway as Pearse’s senior counsel and Anthony Brophy as Eoin MacNeill.
Trial of the Century looks set to have viewers hooked when it airs on TV3 on Saturday, April 30 after TV3 released a 10-second teaser clip.
Produced by Loosehorse Television and Treasure Entertainment for TV3, Trial of the Century is hypothetical excercise that serves as a device to examine the many arguments that have been made for and against the Rising over the last 100 years.
It will also examine the many differing and contradictory statements and findings that have been made about Pearse over the last century.
Over the course of the three-part drama series, Pearse must defend the actions that changed the course of Irish history.
The series will air on TV3 over three consecutive nights, to coincide with the anniversary of Pearse’s execution on May 3.
In the first episode the British prosecution presents its case against the Rising’s leader.
At a time when Home Rule was imminent and World War I was raging, was it justifiable to stand over so many deaths as the capital city burnt to the ground?
In the second installment airing on TV3 on Sunday, May 1, Pearse mounts a robust defence of the Rising, reaching into a long history of British oppression in an attempt to prove that it is legitimate to overthrow a tyrannical regime with force.
In the third and final programme, which continues on the May Bank Holiday Monday, viewers will eavesdrop on the real-time deliberations of an assembled contemporary jury made up of both well-known public figures and ‘ordinary’ Irish citizens, representing all shades and flavours of Irish life.