Hands was an Irish television documentary series broadcast by RTÉ between 1978 and 1989, covering traditional Irish crafts.^[1][2][3][4]

Creator David Shaw-Smith began with Telefís Éireann in the 1960s, working as a cameraman with Gerrit van Gelderen and became an independent filmmaker in the early 1970s. he and his wife Sally, an illustrator, travelled Ireland in a VW van recording traditional craftsmen.^[5]

Hands has been described as one of "Ireland’s favourite" television programs, and has been rebroadcast several times to the extent that it is one of the "most broadcast" RTÉ productions.^[9][10]

Harvey O'Brien, in his The Real Ireland: The Evolution of Ireland in Documentary Film (2004), said "The series was marked by its close-up observation of the techniques involved, and though lacking an explicit social commentary always gave the sense that these skills were gradually disappearing.".^[11]

For over 20 years, the original film sat in tea chests in a barn in Creagh, County Mayo. In March 2013 archivists packed all 1,800 film cans into storage containers and brought them to the RTÉ Archives.^[10]

In 2013, it was revisited in the series In Good Hands (TV series).^[12]

From Christmas 2021 all programmes online at RTE Player to celebrate 60 Years of television.