"I would expect the contestants to be much smarter": A Traitors Ireland Season Two Preview

RTÉ's runaway hit The Traitors Ireland is gearing up for its second outing, and few people are better placed to preview what's coming than someone who lived through the chaos of series one. Westport's Patrick Hughes, a fan favourite from the debut season, has been reflecting on his time in Slane Castle and what he expects from the contestants stepping into the game this time around.

Strategy only gets you so far

Hughes is quick to point out that no amount of planning guarantees survival in this game. Some players arrived with a clear game plan, he recalls, while others seemed to think they'd wandered onto a completely different reality show, and a handful simply drifted through the series without ever really engaging — yet several of those same low-key players ended up going furthest. According to Hughes, that's because being a Faithful strips you of almost all control over your own fate: you have little to no say in who gets "murdered" on any given night, and the conversation at the round table can swing wildly, meaning someone who was never even mentioned in discussion can still be voted off. Sharpness, a good memory for past conversations, and the ability to think on your feet all matter — but luck, he insists, is baked into the format.

That unpredictability, paired with sheer nerve, is what makes the round table the true battleground of the show. Hughes believes the game is ultimately won or lost there, where contestants must defend themselves, deflect suspicion, and go on the attack all at once — something he half-jokingly frames as a kind of debate where the stakes feel existential, even if no one is literally in danger.

Behind the Scenes

Perhaps the most striking part of Hughes' account is his description of the production techniques used to heighten tension among the cast. For roughly two weeks, contestants were required to wear ear defenders whenever cameras weren't rolling, cutting off almost all conversation and leaving each person alone with their own thoughts — a deliberate move, Hughes suggests, to capture every meaningful exchange on camera while also breeding paranoia. Blindfolds were sometimes added on top of the ear defenders during transfers between locations, compounding the disorientation.

Hughes also describes late-night knocks on hotel room doors that turned out to be nothing more than an unrequested bottle of water, engineered purely to spike anxiety about being eliminated. On one occasion, he was pulled aside before breakfast, sat in a chair facing a camera, and handed an envelope he believed would reveal his fate — a moment he turned into a bit of a prank on the crew himself. He's careful to stress that none of it was scripted and that producers had almost no direct interaction with contestants once filming began; the emotional volatility, he says, was a natural product of exhaustion, uncertainty, and isolation rather than any coaching.

Adding to the pressure was a five-month gap between filming and broadcast, during which contestants couldn't discuss the experience with anyone — a stretch of anticipation Hughes says only intensified as release day approached, with worries about how editing would portray them.

What to Expect from Series Two

Looking ahead, Hughes anticipates a slicker production this time out. Season one, he notes, was reportedly the largest production RTÉ had ever undertaken, with hundreds of crew on site on any given day, and inevitably there were rough edges that a first-time Irish cast and crew were bound to hit. With a season under their belt, he expects the show to run more smoothly.

He's also confident the incoming contestants will play a sharper game, having had the chance to study season one's missteps — including his own admission that he barely skimmed the rulebook handed out on day one. Whether that translates into more calculated gameplay or simply fewer rookie errors remains to be seen, but Hughes is candid that raw, unscripted chemistry between cast members can't be manufactured or predicted, no matter how much homework a new group does beforehand.

If season two can recapture even half of the drama, unpredictability, and larger-than-life characters that defined its debut, Hughes suggests, it will have done its job.

The second season of The Traitors Ireland begins on Sunday, 30 August at 9.30pm on RTÉ One.