It'd be a lot more palatable if they didn't continually light up and dwell, linger, on cigarette smoking. Surely financed by a tobacco group. 'Authentic' they say. I say, if the story was any good, it wouldn't need that so-called (smoking-justifying) 'authenticity'. Ruins it for me.

Someone said I should post my comment as a review, so here goes...There are so many procedurals,and cop shows out there,doing the same thing over and over again. This is not one of those regular TV- shows. Crime plays a part of course, but more than that, this is a series that is driven by character development. For each crime we also delve deeper into Quirke's family relations and history. There is a logical development in the way the story is built,so that the plots of the different episodes combine into a whole. And consequences are far from as clean cut, as it would have been in an ordinary cop-show. I have tremendous respect for Gabriel Byrne and Michael Gambon as actors, and I think this material may well have provided the foundation for some of the best acting of their career. The supporting cast is also uniformly excellent, and that nearly all actors in this series is Irish, also makes it that much more convincing.I enjoyed the mood set by the music,and the portrayal of the era. From Smoke-filled streets and bars, to the clothes they use, the cars they drive, and all the small details that make up this wonderful mini-series.

I looked forward to Quirke with Gabriel Byrne back in the British small screen after his foray to Hollywood. In Quirke he is an alcoholic pathologist in 1950s Dublin. Quirke has been adopted by the wealthy Griffin family. His adopted father is played by Michael Gambon.The family itself has hidden secrets, Quirke's own daughter has been raised by his brother when Quirke's wife died. However Quirke has also been carrying on with his brother's wife.In the three films atmospherically shot in a low budget television way, we have Quirke probing into babies being adopted out by the church, or a wide boy taking saucy pictures of married women and using them to blackmail their husbands and the final film is on the hunt of a missing girl who might have had an abortion.The film meshes dark secrets in a 1950s Dublin where the Roman Catholic church has an overbearing influence.However the final product was poor. The first film had sound issues and the films were just dull with a mundane script, predictable characterisation and badly directed. In fact they looked like television dramas from 20 years ago and forgotten that filming techniques have moved on.The series reminded me of Inspector George Gently especially with its period drama setting and the changing social scene of the 1960s north east England but Gently is miles ahead in entertainment value and production values, ironic as the early films were shot in the Republic of Ireland.Quirke is disappointing and a disappointment.

Honestly I do not know they expect to get viewers on a regular basis with only 3 episodes? It did not play like a mini series or long movie. Was it suppose to? It is well done. Different and interesting. The acting was good. But I was sure this was a TV series. Three episodes does not make a TV series. I guess it was not meant to be more. This is from Wiki. Quirke is a British-Irish crime drama television series that was first broadcast on BBC One and RTÉ One in 2014. The three-part series is based on the books by John Banville, writing under the pseudonym Benjamin Black, and was adapted by Andrew Davies and Conor McPherson. I would like to see them actually turn this into a real series.