Irish drama series being compared to Downton Abbey gets release date

Season two of the show is already on the way.

The six-part show, which first aired on Channel 5 in the UK, is based on CL Skelton's best-selling series of novels The Hardacre Saga and was filmed on location in Dublin and Wicklow.

The story chronicles the sweeping rags-to-riches story of a working-class family in 1890s Yorkshire.

When a work accident on the docks lands Irish immigrant Sam (Liam McMahon, Hunger) and his wife Mary Hardacre (Claire Cooper, Snatch) – along with their three kids, and Mary’s inimitable mother Ma (Julie Graham, This City is Ours) – unemployed and destitute, they have to think fast.

In a bid to avoid the workhouse, the driven and determined Hardacres put their last penny into a radical business venture that they hope will free them from their harsh existence on the quays of the North Yorkshire coast.

This venture winds up putting the family on a completely different track, which becomes very lucrative.

As such, the Hardacres are able to move from the grimy fish dock to a vast country estate.

The plot synopsis adds: "The Hardacres places an ordinary family in an extraordinary position and explores the age-old question – can money ever buy true happiness?"

Also part of the cast of the already renewed for season two series are the Irish actors Cathy Belton (Clean Sweep), Ingrid Craigie (The Dead), Mark Doherty (Lies We Tell), Owen Roe (Intermission) and Siobhán O'Kelly (How to Get to Heaven from Belfast).

The show is also directed by the Irish filmmakers Rachel Carey (Deadly Cuts) and Kieron J. Walsh (The Savage Eye).

Having already been compared to Downton Abbey by Decider and The Telegraph, The Hardacres starts on Sunday, 22 March at 1.40pm on RTÉ One and the RTÉ Player.