Season 2 • Episode 2
LatestScobie's doubts about leaving grow, much to the consternation of his mother Angela and her boyfriend Cliff.
Multiple award winning drama series written by Eugene O'Brien, produced by David Collins, Ed Guiney and Peter Norris, and directed by Declan Recks and Charlie McCarthy. Pure Mule is set in modern rural Ireland, in a midlands market town. Each of the six episodes of the original series (which first aired on RTE in 2005) focuses in on one particular character from Friday evening to Monday morning.
Writing
Eugene O'Brien's stage-honed ear for midlands dialect.
Acting
Garrett Lombard's Scobie — heartbreaking, infuriating, unforgettable.
Direction
Declan Recks captures pub lighting like sacred ritual.
Creator
Eugene O’Brien
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Pure Mule premiered during Ireland's Celtic Tiger boom, making its portrait of left-behind midlands towns almost prophetically uncomfortable. RTÉ barely promoted it.
The title's 'mule' references stubbornness, not drugs — though every character is self-medicating something. O'Brien's stage play Eden shares this universe.
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