Mulholland's career as a talented documentarymaker pointed to his eventually occupying the director general's office in RTE. But strangely it was never to be and a hasty parting of the ways was negotiated in 2000.

Since then, Mulholland has busied himself with the McGill summer school in his native Co Donegal. But next week he returns to the world of television when his documentary about painter Louis le Brocquy airs on RTE One. The painter, who was born in Dublin in 1916, talks about his life and times, including a period in Ireland when contemporary art was rejected as offensive and incompetent.