At the peak of the Irish missionary movement, in the 1960s, over 6,000 Irish Catholic missionaries were dispersed over 80 countries. Today, there are only about 450 Irish missionaries still scattered around the world and by the end of this decade, that number is likely to fall below 200.

A new two part series on RTE called The Last Irish Missionaries with former RTE Presenter Bryan Dobson and Dearbhail MacDonald explore the history of Ireland's missions. Bryan and Fr Shay Cullen, founder the PREDA Foundation joined Pat on the show.