Final twist of the knife in The Traitors Ireland finale

A dagger, two deadlocked votes and one final showdown at the fire pit brought the second series of The Traitors Ireland to a dramatic conclusion on Tuesday night.

***Spoiler alert: This article contains details from the final of The Traitors Ireland.***

After weeks of murders, banishments and shifting suspicions around the Round Table, Anna, Carla, Diego and Pauric O entered the final day with €35,850 in the prize pot and everything still to play for.

Two were Faithfuls. Two were Traitors.

Carla had survived from the original line-up of Traitors, while Pauric O had experienced both sides of the game after beginning as a Faithful.

Anna and Diego, meanwhile, were still fighting to make sure the money ended up in Faithful hands.

One last breakfast

The final four began the day reflecting on how far they had come.

Diego said he was proud to have reached the final after entering the game alongside his husband Denis, with the pair managing to keep their relationship secret from their fellow players.

Carla admitted she could barely believe she had made it to the final four.

"If I was getting that money, it's because I worked my ass off," she said. "I had everyone hoodwinked."

Pauric O was already looking ahead to the endgame and hoping Diego would stick to what they had discussed.

Anna, meanwhile, said the experience had taught her something about herself.

"I can speak my mind and I don’t have to just follow. I can lead."

But the game was far from settled.

Anna had told Pauric O she believed Diego and Carla were the Traitors, while Carla remained wary of Anna over the much-discussed board-tapping incident.

Pauric O’s priority was clear: he wanted Diego beside him at the end.

One last chance to boost the pot

A helicopter arrived to whisk the four away from the castle for their final mission.

The challenge revisited some familiar sights from across the series, beginning with coffins containing bags of money before the players moved on to scarecrows and a lake.

For the final stage, they collected money and keys from lobster pots beneath buoys and used the keys to unlock a floating detonator.

The four managed to collect all 25 money bags and complete the mission in time.

Their efforts initially earned them €5,000, before Siobhán McSweeney revealed she was doubling it to €10,000, bringing the final prize fund to €45,850.

Then it was back to the game.

A Round Table deadlock

At the Round Table, Siobhán revealed an important change: whoever was banished would leave immediately without revealing whether they had been a Faithful or a Traitor.

Diego opened the discussion by saying there were two players he wanted to talk about: Anna and Carla.

He questioned Anna over why she had been suspicious of him without bringing those concerns directly to him, while Anna made her own position clear, saying she suspected Diego and Carla.

Attention then turned to Carla.

Diego raised Aoife’s decision to write Carla’s name down before leaving the game, while the board-tapping incident once again came under scrutiny.

Anna also turned her attention to Pauric O, questioning whether the murder in plain sight could have been a double bluff after Janet had previously been openly suspicious of him.

For his part, Pauric O admitted his closeness to Carla may have stopped him looking closely enough at some of the evidence against her.

But he remained convinced about Diego.

"If you’re a Traitor, lad, I’ll eat my hat," he told him.

When the votes were revealed, Anna and Carla had two each.

With the pair unable to vote in the next round, the decision rested with Diego and Pauric O.

Diego voted for Carla.

Pauric O voted for Anna.

Deadlock.

They were given another chance.

Neither changed his mind.

A final twist of the knife

Siobhán then revealed another twist.

Diego and Pauric O were each handed a chest, with one containing a dagger which would give its holder two votes.

Pauric O opened his.

Empty.

Diego had the dagger.

"It’s for you, Carla," he said.

And with two votes, Carla was banished.

"So close, but that’s the game, isn’t it?" she said.

The original Traitor had come within touching distance of the end.

Reflecting on her time in the castle, Carla said she had entered the experience feeling as though she was "stuck in a rut".

"This whole experience opened my eyes to so much," she said.

But she left without revealing whether she had been a Faithful or a Traitor.

Anna, Diego and Pauric O therefore headed to the fire pit with no confirmation that they had made the right call.

'I am now the last Traitor in the game’

Pauric O knew exactly what Carla’s departure meant.

"I am now the last Traitor in the game," he told viewers.

His hopes rested largely on Diego, who he said had repeatedly told him he wanted the pair to reach the end together.

Anna, meanwhile, knew Pauric O was likely to come for her.

"I know Pauric O is gunning for me," she said.

At the fire pit, the three players were asked to choose between ending the game and banishing again.

Anna went first.

She chose to banish.

"I believe there’s still a Traitor here," she said.

Pauric O also chose to continue, saying there was only one player he trusted enough to finish the game alongside.

Then came Diego.

He also chose to banish.

All three believed somebody else still had to go.

Diego makes the final call

Each player was given one last opportunity to make their case.

Anna insisted she had been a Faithful from the moment she walked into the castle and had done everything she could to catch the Traitors.

Diego said he had played the game as fairly as possible and had always tried to work for the team.

Then came the vote.

Anna voted for Pauric O, saying she believed he was the remaining Traitor.

Pauric O stuck with the suspicion he had voiced for several nights and voted for Anna.

For the second time in the final, everything came down to Diego.

"My vote today is for, in my opinion, one of the best players as a Traitor here in this castle," he said.

He turned his slate.

Pauric O.

The last Traitor had fallen.

"The game’s over for me, but oh my God, what an experience," Pauric O said.

"I could have been the first one murdered. I could have been the first one banished, and I wasn’t, and I’ve got to experience the whole lot."

He said he had "no regrets at all" and described his time in the castle as "the best few weeks of my life".

‘We need to rename the show’

Anna and Diego were the final two players standing.

Under the rules of the game, there could be no more banishments.

Now they simply had to reveal whether they were Faithfuls or Traitors.

Anna went first.

"I am a Faithful."

Then it was Diego’s turn.

He thanked Siobhán for inviting him to her "crazy castle" and said that if he won the money he wanted to take his husband Denis on honeymoon.

"And that’s going to happen," he said.

"Because I am a Faithful."

"Are you serious?" Anna replied.

The Faithfuls had done it.

Anna and Diego had survived to the end and, when it mattered most, helped remove both remaining Traitors.

"I’ve just won The Traitors," a stunned Anna said.

There was still one surprise left for her when Diego revealed that Denis, who had played alongside him earlier in the series, was actually his husband.

Siobhán raised a glass.

"To the Faithful! To the Faithful!"

"We need to rename the show."

Champagne and fireworks followed as Anna and Diego left the game side by side.

Diego then rang Denis with the news.

"You need to pack, because we have to go on our honeymoon," he told him.

"I won The Traitors Ireland. I won. I won with Anna."

"How much did we win, babe?" Denis asked.

Diego’s response was immediate.

"We!?"

Click here to watch the full series of The Traitors Ireland on RTÉ Player.