Over the course of four weeks, the murder mystery game show’s 24 contestants were whittled down to just five.
The grand finale pitted Traitors Ben Donovan and Nick O’Loughlin against the three female Faithfuls – Higgins, Ogbonna and Adeyemi.
“I do think it’s poetic justice, because if you watch the timeline of the show, the girls were at the centre of a lot of findings. The boys closed a lot of deals for us, but I think we laid down a lot of the foundations,” Ogbonna said.
The three women will split the final prize fund of €42,900 between them. The prize pot from the last season of the UK Traitors was substantially more, with the two winners splitting over €108,000.
I am buying a flight to Japan
Asked what they would spend the money on, the three women had varied responses.
Adeyemi said: “I am buying a flight to Japan, because it is a dream destination of mine and I have grown up loving gaming culture and anime.”
Higgins said she would pay off the remainder of her parents’ mortgage.
Ogbonna said she intended to “blow it all”, adding: “I am 29. I am going to have a lot of responsibilities coming in the next few years, and I don’t think I am going to have 12 grand just given to me at any point of my life.”
Higgins described their victory as a “win for women”. She had the deciding “swing vote” in the final round table, resulting in Nick O’Loughlin’s banishment.
“I would rather be idolised amongst women than admired by men,” she said. “For me, I would have rather been played by women on the show than played by men. As much as the boys played a brilliant game, and I can’t fault them, I would rather just stick to what I know, which is always being there for the girls … Luckily it was the right decision.”
Vanessa, Kelley, Siobhán McSweeney, Ben and Oyin during the grand finale of ‘The Traitors Ireland’. Photo: RTÉ/KITE
In the series, O’Loughlin and Donovan frequently talked about the game being “theirs to lose”. Unfortunately, they did just that. But they said that there were no hard feelings.
“We’re delighted for the girls. We’re all good friends, and real, so we couldn’t be happier,” O’Donovan said.
The two Traitors said that being a Faithful would have been a more enjoyable experience than being a Traitor.
“I think I would have liked it at the start, but at the end I had built all the relationships with people – having to do what we done, I didn’t enjoy it. Especially when you see people’s reactions,” Donovan said.
O’Loughlin added: “I would always take chasing Traitors being on the Faithful side, and being honest in yourself and not having to lie or push people to breaking point… I would always rather be a Faithful.”
While all spoke positively about taking part in the show, some of the contestants were taken aback by some of the negative online responses from viewers.
The messages of hate I received … it really got to me
Higgins said she had received negative comments after being accused of being a “mean girl” when she voted to banish Joanna Masiarek: “I think the edit and the way the show can sometimes be shown can throw you in a bad light, but I can sit here now and say [my comments at the roundtable] were not made in a malicious way. And the messages of hate I received so quickly after that… it really got to me.
“I would understand if I meant it in a malicious way and I tried to come across as a bad person, but that was never my intention, and I have nothing but love for Joanna. It was so hard to see people come at me.”
The series has been a ratings hit for RTÉ. The first episode was watched by more than 600,000 people, and a second series seems inevitable.
The series was filmed in Slane Castle in March of this year, with Slane heir Alex Conyngham describing it as the start of “an exciting new chapter” for the castle.
To ensure that the result of the show was kept secret, all contestants had to sign NDAs. To ensure that no information was leaked, they were transported to the venues while wearing noise-cancelling headphones.
They stayed in separate locations and hotels, and their hotel rooms were changed frequently, according to director of content at Kite Entertainment Mairéad Whelan.