General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Harry Wild

Harry Wild is an Irish comedy-drama mystery television series starring Jane Seymour as Harriet "Harry" Wild, a retired English literature professor who becomes an amateur private investigator in Dublin after being mugged and stumbling into a murder case her detective son is working on.¹ Created by David Logan and produced for Acorn TV, the series premiered on April 4, 2022 and has run for five seasons.²

Key fact	Detail
Premise	Retired literature professor Harriet "Harry" Wild, recovering at the home of her son Charlie, a Dublin police detective, spots a clue in his murder case and, when rebuffed, solves the crime herself with her teen mugger Fergus as sidekick¹^•³
Star	Jane Seymour, Emmy and Golden Globe winner, who also executive produces⁴^•⁵
Creators	Created by David Logan; series 1 written by Logan and Jo Spain, directed by Ronan Burke and Rob Burke⁴^•⁶
First season	Eight episodes, shot and set in Dublin, first aired April 4, 2022 on Acorn TV⁶^•²
Production companies	Acorn TV, Ardvella Entertainment, and Dynamic Television⁷
Seasons	Five seasons and 32 episodes as of July 2026, plus a feature-length special in November 2025⁸^•⁹
Setting	Dublin and surrounding counties; Harry's local pub, The Hairy Goose, is the real Brennan's Kilteel Inn in Kilteel, County Kildare¹⁰

Spoilers

Premise and characters

The series opens with Harry Wild adjusting poorly to retirement from her post as a literature professor. After she is mugged, she recovers at the home of her son Charlie, a detective with the Dublin police, and notices a clue in his current murder case that resembles an obscure Elizabethan play. When Charlie dismisses her help, she decides to solve the crime herself, recruiting her teenage mugger, Fergus Reid (Rohan Nedd), as an unlikely partner; the two go on to run the Wild/Reid Detective Agency.¹^•³^•¹¹

Harry is written as a well-traveled, rebellious English woman who settled in Ireland years before the story begins to raise her son.⁶ Kevin Ryan plays Charlie, and Rose O'Neill plays Lola; Samantha Mumba appears as Paula Kenny.¹² Each episode presents a new crime mystery, in a "murder of the week" structure.⁶

Season 5

Season 5 marked an on-screen reunion between Jane Seymour and Joe Lando, her co-star from Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, who joined the cast as Pierce Kennedy, a new State Pathologist.¹⁷ The six weekly episodes took Harry through cases involving a whiskey empire with corporate secrets and family rivalries, a theater with a history of fatal performances of Macbeth, and a private school scandal.¹² The first four seasons had earned a 7.1 rating on IMDb.¹² As of September 2026, Acorn TV had not announced a sixth season, though nothing had been canceled either.¹⁸

Production and setting

The show was originally planned as an English series. Writer David Logan and Jo Spain wrote an eight-part drama intended to take place in England, but Covid restrictions moved production to Ireland, where the plan was first to dress Dublin locations to look English before the producers decided to embrace the Irish setting outright, as Jane Seymour recounted on The Ryan Tubridy Show in June 2021.¹³ Filming for the first season ran from May to August 2021, including locations at Trinity College Dublin such as the Graduates Memorial Building, Parliament Square, and the Anatomy Building.¹⁴^•⁴

Real locations. The production films largely on location rather than on sets. Documented filming sites include Brennan's Kilteel Inn in Kilteel, County Kildare, rebranded as Harry's local pub The Hairy Goose for the camera; Killiney Hill; Sidmonton Square in Bray, used for Harry's house; Bray Head; and the harbor at Dún Laoghaire.¹⁴^•¹⁰ Season 2 filmed at Bray Library, among other Wicklow locations, and season 4 filmed at Nun's Cross, Ashford, in County Wicklow.¹⁵^•¹⁶ Later filming blocks ran from October 2022 to April 2023, July to October 2024, and September to November 2025.¹⁴

Broadcast history

Season 1, eight episodes, aired on Acorn TV in April 2022.² The series was a breakout success for the streamer in its first season and, according to Acorn TV, remained a top performer through its second and third seasons.⁵ Subsequent seasons of six episodes each followed: season 2 in October to November 2023, season 3 in May to June 2024, season 4 in May to June 2025, and season 5 from June 22 to July 27, 2026, for 32 episodes in total.²^•⁸ A feature-length special premiered on November 24, 2025, ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.⁹ In the United Kingdom, the first four seasons became available free on Channel 4.¹²

Reception and context

Seymour has described the role as significant for her at this stage of her career, saying that playing "a woman of a certain age who's not decided to go live under a rock" is "just huge" for her, and that she is glad to lead a show in her seventies rather than appear as "some random grandmother in the background."¹⁹ Reviewers have noted that she plays against type as a wisecracking, occasionally foul-mouthed investigator, and that the series makes full use of Dublin's streets and the surrounding Irish countryside.²⁰ The series sits within Acorn TV's slate of international detective dramas alongside titles such as Dalgliesh, My Life Is Murder, and Signora Volpe.¹⁷

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Scripted television and comedy series › Drama and prestige series (individual series) › Crime and thriller series › Police and detective procedurals

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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