Trivia / Love/Hate

• Acclaimed Flop: Most watched drama in Ireland, the most successful home-grown show in god-knows-how-long, massive DVD sales, sold to international TV stations, all anyone talks about on chat shows the day after it airs and a massive cultural touchstone ... that costs the taxpayer a fortune. The show is not profitable. Series 3 was still in the red by the time series 4 started airing. RTÉ is playing a very risky game of optics in continuing to produce this show. It's widely thought that the reason Raw was cancelled was to put more money into Love/Hate.
• Actor Allusion:

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  • Gav, a Garda in season 4 is mockingly referred to as 'Obama'. While in university, actor Aaron Heffernan played Obama in the comedy musical "Obama Mia!", which went on to be performed at the Edinburgh Fringe; he also 'played' Obama in skits on a number of national radio and TV shows, and ran for Students' Union President in-character (a race he ended up pulling out of the race when he polled far, far ahead of the actual candidates).
  • Debbie's frequent trips across to England could be seen as a subtle nod to the fact that her actress is breaking into a career over there.
• Actor-Shared Background: Ciaran Madden is played by a real drug-squad garda. This got the actor into trouble with his superiors although it's not forbidden for Gardaí to have a second job. In the end, he got transferred to immigration.

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• Cast the Expert: Ciaran Madden, one of the Gardaí in Mick Moynihan's taskforce is played by a real Garda.
• Dawson Casting: Charlie Murphy was in her early twenties playing a seventeen-year-old Siobhan in series 1. Her age isn't mentioned after this.
• Dye Hard: The naturally brunette Ruth Bradley is blonde in Season 1.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Tom Vaughan-Lawlor shaves his head every year in order to play Nidge.
• Jossed:
  • Because of Darren's ability to survive being shot, a scene showing his body at the morgue was specifically filmed for the series 4 premiere to dispel fan theories that he survived Lizzie's attack.
  • Tom Vaughan-Lawlor came out the day after the series 5 finale aired and confirmed that Nidge is definitely dead.
• Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: Mary's hair is brown in Season 2 because Ruth Bradley had dyed it for Primeval.
• Star-Making Role:

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  • Tom Vaughan-Lawlor and Peter Coonan became household names in Ireland from this show.
  • Barry Keoghan ended up getting a considerable amount of hype, leading to roles in Dunkirk and The Killing of a Sacred Deer.
• Throw It In!: Fran's Memetic Mutation Catchphrase "cool-a-bula" was ad-libbed by Peter Coonan.
• Typecasting: Aiden Gillen as a slimy villain.
• What Could Have Been: Robbie Walsh pushed for Jimmy Byrne not to be killed off so suddenly after being built up as such a threat to Darren - feeling more could be done with him. The show runners however were convinced that no one would watch and they weren't likely to get a second season.

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