Behind the scenes of RTÉ's The Traitors Ireland with Mayo's Patrick Hughes

PATRICK Hughes left Slane Castle happy. He tells The Mayo News that he got everything out on the table and that Episode 8 was his best day on RTÉ’s The Traitors Ireland.

The ‘Faithful’ was banished from Slane Castle last Monday week. Following a tense roundtable where he failed to convince his fellow Faithfuls he was one of them losing the vote by 8-4 between himself and Wilkin.

Thus ending the Faithful’s winning streak of having caught three Traitors in three nights.Now back home in Westport, we join him on Bridge Street at his á Thai Restaurant where he serves up what really happened on the show and what he learnt from the other contestants.

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It was on a drive to Wexford to buy kitchen equipment for the restaurant that he first heard an ad for the show that piqued his interest.

Having left the bright lights of Las Vegas five years ago, the show’s promise of deception, lying and humanity’s dark side appealed as he wanted to see if he still had the sharp senses to know when someone wasn’t telling the truth.

After decades of experience in the casino industry of “chasing down cheats and liars” to “give it one last shot and see if I still have that.”

“I absolutely believe that over the years, I developed this sixth sense for reading groups of people. I could walk into a room or a street or any environment and just get an immediate sense for the mood.

“I could sense when a scam was coming at me, for definite. And I used to get a tenseness in my shoulders, and then it would happen. Over time, you learn to trust those senses. And that’s what went on. My Spidey sense. I was seeing if I could get out of me one more time. That was the whole point.”

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During that time, he came face to face with the card counting crew from MIT that would inspire a bestselling book, ‘Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions’ by Ben Mezrich and the film ‘21’, starring Kevin Spacey.

“I literally saw them. I experienced them face to face in New York. I saw those groups at work, and they hit us for hundreds of thousands of dollars. They weren’t cheating, they were just counting cards. That was one of my early days of experiencing people who had an advantage over the casino.”

Having been a hit in New York, Patrick later opened up another place called The Resort at Summerland.

“They followed us up there as well, because the management at that time didn’t believe that card counters could have an advantage. So it was a pot of gold for them. I saw many of them in action, hitting us for lots of money.”

Other contestants
THE reality TV participant, who described the show as “the most stressful thing I’ve ever done in my life,” offered fascinating insights into the strategic gameplay and personalities that defined the Irish version of the popular format.

Hughes was particularly impressed by fellow contestant Paudie, crediting his professional background as a key factor in his success. “If you go back to Episode One, when we got out of the cars and walked up to meet Siobhan for the first time,” Hughes recalled, “Paudie and I were standing right beside each other.”The moment that followed would prove prophetic. When the traitors were selected that first night around the round table, Hughes immediately sensed danger. “Right after the traitors have been selected, I turned around to Kelley. I said, listen, be careful of him, because I truly believe that as a prison officer, 30 years in a controlled, chaotic environment, which I’m guessing is what prisons are, that he could actually thrive in that environment.”

Hughes’ instincts proved correct: “He wasn’t the most strategic, but he certainly was the best under pressure,” he reflected. “You think I thought I had a poker face, but I know Paul, you had the poker face at the end of the day.”

Clash of personalities
NOT every relationship in the castle was smooth sailing. Hughes was frank about his difficulties with contestant Nina, acknowledging a mutual friction that affected his gameplay.

“I learned after meeting Nina that my skills weren’t sharpened at that time because I sensed, believed at that time that she was a Traitor,” he admitted. “You throw 24 strangers into a castle in this pressure cooker environment ... you can’t expect everyone to love each other.”

Hughes was philosophical about the conflict: “We just rubbed each other the wrong way. It was a bi-directional thing. And I just believed at that moment, based upon her actions, that she was sowing seeds of doubt... she was being too overt in her thoughts, and that’s what made me believe that she was a Traitor.”

Perhaps most revealing were Hughes’ comments about Nick, whose strategic acumen only became clear to him while watching the episodes back. “I had no clue that Nick was conspiring against me all day long,” Hughes confessed. “He spent a whole day on that and got no votes, thankfully.”

Hughes praised Nick’s tactical approach, particularly his early elimination strategy: “He got rid of Mark right away because he felt absolutely correct that Mark was a threat because of his disability and the strengths that his disability has given him.

“He can read lips, but he can also hear because of his cochlear implants. He can hear conversations across the room. And Mark is also, you know, has learned over the years how to read people because of their mannerisms.”

The strategic thinking extended to Hughes himself: “I was the next threat, and that’s why Nick floated the possibility of me being a Traitor... You talk about strategic - he’s going down the line right now.”

Hughes was particularly struck by fellow contestant Oyin’s approach to the game, describing her strategy with admiration: “She’s sitting back and listening... I’ve been reminded of the power of listening, because you learn nothing when you’re talking.”

“That’s the strength that she has,” Hughes noted, “she’s listening to everyone else talking and then formulating her thoughts and expressing them in her beautiful and soft way.”

Subtle changes
EVEN small details didn’t escape Hughes’ notice, including the physical toll the game took on contestants like Katelyn. “The one change I saw in Katelyn was her demeanor. She looked tired,” he observed. “From what I gather, Katelyn loves to have a good night’s sleep, and when she was getting much shorter sleeps, and then the stress of it all ... Caitlin was exhausted.”
Hughes regretted not having more opportunity to connect with her during the game: “I never really got a chance to grill her, I suppose, to dig deep and ask some questions, see what the reactions were.”

Reflecting on the overall experience, Hughes emphasised the intense psychological pressure of the format: “You put 24 people into that environment ... it was the most stressful thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

“This is one thing I need to emphasise, none of this is scripted. There are no discussions off camera, so there’s no conspiring behind the scenes. There’s nothing that’s not captured. Ultimately, you’re with each other for twelve hours a day, but all conversations are captured. And then you head back to your room at night and then back the next morning.”

The contestants don’t have their mobile phones or contact with the outside world, other than one point of contact. In Patrick’s case, his wife Nikki was his point of contact.

“That’s how they get so many emotions out of people in such a short space of time. All these things are done to make you and help you focus purely on this. So while you’re there, all you’re thinking about is the game, and that builds up paranoia as well and throughout. So there’s many, many elements there that help get us to that emotional state.”

His candid assessments of his fellow contestants reveal not just the complex social dynamics at play in the castle, but also the sharp observational skills that nearly carried him to the end of one of Ireland’s most talked-about reality shows.