Almost a million people tune in to welcome Nidge back

Almost a million people tuned in to watch Nidge and co last night as the fifth series of the award-winning Love/Hate kicked off on RTÉ.

976,400 people watched the first episode of the six part series in which an increasingly paranoid Nidge dodged a group of murderous Travellers and flew to Spain to get a loan from an expat Dublin crime boss in order to get back into the drugs importation game.

Cats were not troubled in the opening scenes of this series in contrast to the fourth series in which a moggy was depicted being machine-gunned to death.

41 people complained to the broadcaster over the scene prompting it to valiantly defend itself: “The impact blood splatter was created through CGI effects in post-production,” it said.

The cat in question, Leo, even made an "appearance" on The Late Late Show to prove she was indeed only acting.

While moggies were safe, humans were not. The opening episode last night ended with a vicious gangland murder and tensions are rife between Nidge and his sidekick Fran.

The show was the second most watched programme on RTÉ last year with some 1,117,000 viewers tuning into the finale of series four. It was eclipsed only by The Late Late Toy Show which attracted 1,547,000 viewers.