Forget Cillian Murphy, Barry Keoghan’s 28-Episode Crime Thriller Is The Original Peaky Blinders

Published Nov 10, 2026, 4:03 PM EST Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020. Years before Netflix’s Peaky Blinders made a massive mainstream star of the show's leading man Cillian Murphy, his co-star Barry Keoghan’s earlier Irish crime drama offered a blueprint for the hit series. Gangster movies and mob shows are as tonally varied as any other genre. For every light-hearted comedy like 1999's Analyze This or The Freshman, there are brutal, unsparing mob movies like The King of New York or Donnie Brasco. Even though The Godfather and City of God feel completely different in terms of style, tone, and content, both are considered among the best gangster movies ever made. Similarly, even though Netflix’s iconic mob show Peaky Blinders was heavily influenced by an unfairly forgotten Irish crime drama, the five-season series feels surprisingly different from the later period drama starring Cillian Murphy. Before he won an Oscar for playing the title character of Oppenheimer, 28 Days Later star Murphy rose to new levels of A-list stardom thanks to his iconic role as the implacable Birmingham gangland leader Tommy Shelby in Peaky Blinders. As the head of the eponymous crime clan, Shelby turned the Peaky Blinders from a ragtag street gang into a well-oiled criminal operation. In 2026’s spinoff movie Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, the series introduced Barry Keoghan as his son Duke, but Keoghan had already starred in Love/Hate, the Irish show that quietly helped shape Peaky Blinders. Love/Hate Is The Original Irish Gangster Thriller Of The 21st Century Debuting in 2010 and running for five seasons until 2014 on the Irish broadcast channel RTE, Love/Hate was a contemporary crime drama set in Dublin’s criminal underground. Its plot primarily focused on Aiden Gillen’s mob boss John Boy and his minions, Robert Sheehan’s Darren, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor’s Nidge, and Killian Scott’s Tommy, but, like a lot of its contemporaries in the genre, Love/Hate’s scope expanded in its later seasons to explore more characters in more depth. This allowed Love/Hate to build one of the best ensemble casts of the 2010s, with Ruth Negga, Peter Campion, Peter Coonan, Gavin Drea, John Connors, Caoilfhionn Dunne, and the star of the acclaimed British sci-fi series Humans, Ruth Bradley, joining the cast in later outings. Keoghan played the young small-time criminal Wayne in season 4, and found early infamy thanks to a shocking scene of cruelty involving his inexperienced, callous gangster character. Peaky Blinders Took Its Cues From Love/Hate MovieStillsDB Love/Hate preceded Peaky Blinders by three years, but it might be tough for uninitiated viewers to see how the series influenced the later Netflix hit. While both shows focus on morally compromised career criminals, Peaky Blinders was a slick, stylized period drama about romanticized gangster antiheroes, whereas Love/Hate was a brutally bleak and grounded contemporary crime drama. Despite this tonal gulf between the shows, though, Love/Hate proved surprisingly influential during the production of Peaky Blinders. Much like Love/Hate creator Stuart Carolan eventually directed episodes of Guy Ritchie’s wild Netflix crime comedy The Gentlemen, Love/Hate director David Caffrey also worked on season 4 of Peaky Blinders. Love/Hate’s director of photography, Cathal Watters, also joined the Netflix show with Caffrey, and, of course, Keoghan went on to star in Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man long after Love/Hate gave the actor his breakout role. The two shows also share a focus on cycles of violence and a gritty depiction of the psychological trauma it inflicts, despite the comparatively glamorous style of Peaky Blinders. Finally, season 4 also brought Love/Hate star Gillen to the world of Peaky Blinders to play the role of Aberama Gold, a killer for hire whose showy antics disguised a commitment to his family that eventually proved to be the memorable supporting character’s ultimate undoing. Release Date 2013 - 2022-00-00 Network BBC One, BBC Two Showrunner Steven Knight Cast Paul Anderson Arthur Shelby Directors Anthony Byrne, Colm McCarthy, David Caffrey, Otto Bathurst, Tim Mielants, Tom Harper Writers Stephen Russell, Steven Knight, Toby Finlay Creator(s) Steven Knight