''Dragons' Den'' was an Irish television series, presented by Richard Curran, based on the worldwide series ''

Dragons' Den ''Dragons' Den'' is a reality television program format in which entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to a panel of venture capitalists in the hope of securing investment finance from them. The program originated in 2001 in Japan, where it ...

''. It first aired in February 2009 and ran for eight series, until 2017.

History

The first episode was broadcast on 19 February 2009. The third season aired on

RTÉ One RTÉ One is an Irish free-to-air flagship television channel owned and operated by RTÉ. It is the most-popular and most-watched television channel in the country and was launched as ''Telefís Éireann'' on 31 December 1961, it was renamed ''R ...

with Norah Casey as the new Dragon. Toward the end of the season, episodes showed the Dragons on tour visiting their past investments. For the fourth season, Seán O'Sullivan, co-founder of

Kinsale Kinsale ( ; ) is a historic port and fishing town in County Cork, Ireland. Located approximately south of Cork (city), Cork City on the southeast coast near the Old Head of Kinsale, it sits at the mouth of the River Bandon, and has a populatio ...

-based Avego Ltd, replaced Seán Gallagher. A live, interactive ''Sixth Dragon Game'' was developed to be played whilst watching the show, in which viewers are able to decide if they're "in" or "out" as the pitches unfold. The ''Sixth Dragon Game'' is the first live

interactive game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual feedback from a display device, most ...

for an Irish TV show. The eighth series of ''Dragons Den'' included three female Dragons for the first time. Chanelle McCoy, wife of

Tony McCoy Sir Anthony Peter McCoy (born 4 May 1974), commonly known as AP McCoy or Tony McCoy, is a Northern Irish former National Hunt horse racing jockey. Based in Ireland and Britain, McCoy rode a record 4,358 winners and was Champion Jockey a recor ...

, was new to the Den that year, replacing Seán O'Sullivan.

Dragons

The dragons throughout the series' run were:. Former Dragon Seán Gallagher was a candidate in the 2011 presidential election, coming in second to

Michael D. Higgins Michael Daniel Higgins (; born 18 April 1941) is an Irish politician, poet, broadcaster, and sociologist who has been serving as the president of Ireland since 2011. Entering national politics through the Labour Party, he served as a senator ...

. Three current or former Dragons, Peter Casey, Seán Gallagher and Gavin Duffy, were candidates in the 2018 presidential election, coming in second, third and sixth (last), respectively.

References

{{Dragons' Den 2009 Irish television series debuts 2017 Irish television series endings Irish reality television series RTÉ original programming Television series by Screentime Irish television series based on non-Irish television series Irish TV series