Hands is an Irish television documentary series broadcast by RTÃÂ between 1978 and 1989, covering traditional Irish crafts.
Creator David Shaw-Smith began with TelefÃÂs ÃÂireann in the 1960s, working as a cameraman with Gerrit van Gelderen and became an independent filmmaker in the early 1970s. he and his wife Sally, an illustrator, travelled Ireland in a VW van recording traditional craftsmen.
Hands has been described as one of "IrelandâÂÂs favourite" television programs, and has been rebroadcast several times to the extent that it is one of the "most broadcast" RTàproductions.
Harvey O'Brien, in his The Real Ireland: The Evolution of Ireland in Documentary Film (2004), said "The series was marked by its close-up observation of the techniques involved, and though lacking an explicit social commentary always gave the sense that these skills were gradually disappearing."
For over 20 years, the original film sat in tea chests in a barn in Creagh, County Mayo. In March 2013 archivists packed all 1,800 film cans into storage containers and brought them to the RTÃÂ Archives.
In 2013, it was revisited in the series In Good Hands.
From Christmas 2021 all programmes online at RTE Player to celebrate 60 Years of Television.