RTÉ series captures two decades with Ireland’s dolphins

A new RTÉ documentary series, filmed over the course of 20 years, takes viewers deep into the world of dolphins off Ireland’s Atlantic coast. Dolphins: Wonders of the Ocean began airing on Sunday evening on RTÉ One and the RTÉ Player.

The series is the work of underwater cameraman and filmmaker Ken O’Sullivan, who has spent two decades documenting the lives of dolphins in Irish waters. His journey began on the Clare coast in the early 2000s, when he encountered a solitary bottlenose dolphin known locally as Dusty.

“Where Dingle had Fungi, Clare now had Dusty,” O’Sullivan recalls. “She became part of my journey to explore and film Ireland’s undersea world. It was a life-changing moment, one that compelled me to stay and document the incredible marine life in these seas.”

The series follows O’Sullivan from his early encounters with a lone dolphin to freediving with vast pods in the open North Atlantic. Using cinematic natural history footage, it captures behaviours never before filmed in Irish waters, including large groups hunting cooperatively.

But the films also chart growing concerns for the species. O’Sullivan and his team highlight threats from overfishing, sound pollution and the rising number of strandings and dolphin deaths recorded along the Irish coast each year. The series questions the often romanticised view of these animals and examines the existential challenges they now face in the northeast Atlantic.

O’Sullivan said the project was about more than just stunning images. “There is so much life here in these seas. If you are patient, and work hard, you can find magic. But what we are also finding is how fragile that magic has become.”

Dolphins: Wonders of the Ocean continues on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player on Sunday evenings at 6.30pm.