Single-Handed - Episode Guide

No sooner has Garda officer Jack Driscoll returned from Dublin to replace retiring copper dad Gerry in rural Connemara than he has to investigate the death of a young Balkan barmaid, who died of gas fumes inhalation in her trailer home. Jack finds evidence of foul play and learns that the girl was popular with the local menfolk. Ageing builder Tommy, whose niece Jack dates, wanted to marry her but she preferred the younger Liam, who points Jack towards the local hotelier who employed her, not just as a barmaid but as a prostitute. He warns Jack that she was involved with several influential locals, including Gerry, but Gerry is no help to his son, dismissing the victim as a "little foreign tart on the make." This only strengthens Jack's resolve to investigate further.

Jack learns that the victim was called Sylvana and that she was pregnant. Tommy was going to arrange an abortion in England for her. Tommy, in fact, has had previous experience of helping out girls who got pregnant. Many years earlier he was of assistance to another young woman, but the baby girl concerned was adopted and not aborted. The identity of that baby and her father are truly shocking for Jack and local pressures force his hand in not taking the case any further.

Eilish Burke's two-year-old son Conal is abducted, apparently by her ex-husband Padraig, though her family are unpopular locally as they are travellers with form and Jack's lazy superior has already given the child up as dead. Gerry, Jack's corrupt father, is subject to a tribunal for past misdemeanours when he was a Garda sergeant and Jack's girlfriend Maggie, the local doctor, supports Eilish and is concerned for Gerry's health. However, she has kept quiet about Padraig's drug addiction, to Jack's annoyance. Having prevented Gerry from doctoring evidence he traces Padraig through his drug-dealer but Conal is not with him.

Padraig is well and truly out of it,due to the drugs, and Jack roughs him up in order to get news of Conal but Eilish admits that she is now uncertain that Padraig took him as she never got a good look at the abductor and made a supposition. Gerry points Jack towards Malachy Doran, a retired school-teacher who worked with Jack's mother Eithne and is now ringing her up. Malachy was once suspected of being a paedophile but released through lack of evidence. Malachy has indeed got his own agenda for returning to the area, as Gerry finds to his cost. Conal is eventually found alive.

Whilst looking into the drowning of a local teenager, Garda Sergeant Jack Driscoll stumbles into the middle of a national investigation into a drug trafficking ring.

Jack continues to investigate how the drowning is linked to the drug trafficking ring.

The body of elderly recluse Seamus Devlin is discovered dead in a field and the initial charge is to Ruairi, a troubled teenager, who is staying at a remote youth facility. Jack is forced to keep watch on him as he gathers evidence on the death. Meanwhile, a long-lost cousin Brian and his girlfriend Gemma opens up new wounds for Jack's mother and the discovery of an uncle Jack never knew existed - a victim of the now derelict and violent industrial school for young offenders.

Jack continues his investigation into the death of Seamus Devlin and discovers a link between him and his newly found Uncle Sean going back to his uncle's days in St. Augusta's Industrial School. Meanwhile, Dennis Costello plans a major redevelopment of his pub which won't please Jack. Elsewhere, Brian considers staying on and renting after Dennis tells him that his father inherited land in the area which is now his.

Jack investigates the suspicious fire of an unfinished house which belonged to his friend Killian Kinsella. Killian informs him that he sold the house to Dennis Costello some weeks previously. Shortly afterwards the body of Killian's sister-in-law Niamh Duffy is found dead in the burnt out house. Jack suspects that Dennis had a hand in the fire and sets out to prove what happened. Meanwhile, Jack kisses his cousin's girlfriend Gemma and also finds out that Finbarr slipped plans for Dennis's nightclub past him and he is far from pleased. Elsewhere, Dennis calls in Jack's old boss to help him deflect evidence of the fire away from him.

Jack continues to find the person he believes torched Dennis Costello's abandoned house but finds himself thwarted every which way by both Costello and his former boss Jim Dooley. But is Jack looking in the right direction? Meanwhile, Gemma breaks up with Brian and he takes revenge by attacking Jack and then changing the locks on Eithne's home barring her entry.

Jack starts an affair with his cousin's ex-fiancée Gemma just as he begins an investigation into a prostitution ring led by Dubliner James Kerrigan who has managed to lure local teenager Mairead O'Sullivan into the ring also. An out of control Brian attacks Gemma prompting Jack to hit Brian but his attack gives Dennis Costello the ammunition he has been looking for in trying to get rid of Jack. Elsewhere, a broke Finbarr applies for a loan to the bank.

Jack is suspended by Inspector O'Kane pending his investigation into the assault charges on his cousin Brian. Dennis puts the thumbscrews into Finbarr now that he is acting Sergeant but is Finbarr finally getting wise to Dennis's tricks. Meanwhile, Mairead O'Sullivan overdoses after she refuses to give her statement to anyone but Jack. At the hospital James Kerrigan takes advantage of Mairead and brings her back to his house and forces her to resume her prostitution role. Although suspended he works with Mairead's dad to get Mairead back.