Tea, taboo and tractors with The Riordans

Documentary on legendary RTE rural drama to be shown on Sunday

The recent passing of Tom Hickey has prompted RTE to show again the documentary made about 12 years ago on the channel’s first rural soap, ‘The Riordans’.

The passing of the actor, who played farmer’s son, Benjy Riordan, in the long-running drama, marked the end of the central family unit of Tom and Mary Riordan and the next generation, Benjy and Maggie.

Biddy White Lennon, later a food writer, who played Maggie, died in 2017, while Moira Deady, who played her mother-in-law, departed seven years before that. The Navan actor, John Cowley, who played Tom Riordan, had left the stage in 1998.

Even though set in a fictional village called Leestown in Co Kilkenny, ‘The Riordans’ was filmed in Dunboyne in County Meath, as well as in neighbouring Kilbride village and other locations in the area.

The Riordans ran from 1965 until the plug was dramatically pulled on it in 1979. Other stars were Rebecca Wilkinson (sister of singer, Colm) as Jude Riordan, and John Cowley’s wife, Annie D’Alton, played Minnie Brennan, wife of Frank O’Donovan’s Batty.

Following the success of ‘Tolka Row’, the Dublin-based urban soap, the fledgling RTE channel decided to try its hand at a rural production.

A search was made for a suitable location within a short drive from Dublin, and an advertisement placed in the Meath Chronicle for such a location, which produced a reply from William Connolly of the Flathouse farm in Dunboyne.

Over the next 14 years, 600 episodes were made and sadly, very few were preserved in the RTE library. However, the series still remains as legendary as ever, despite the fact that it is three decades since it was shown, and it has never been repeated. It was never afraid to tackle the burning taboo subjects of the day.

Unlike modern day soaps, the actual rooms and kitchen in the Connolly household were used, with the Connollys having to leave the home for a day of filming. Over the years, as the equipment and cameras got bigger, sets were built in the Connolly barn.

At the height of The Riordans, 1.2 million watched Benjy and Maggie get married, in Kilbride Church.

Afterwards, when Benjy went to Africa as a lay missionary, Maggie’s eyes were turned by a young farmhand, played by a budding young actor called Gabriel Byrne.

Before UK television began making ‘Emmerdale Farm’, its producers came over to Ireland to see RTE’s flagship drama, The Riordans, worked.

In 1978, a press conference was called by RTE to say the series was ending the following year. It was also news to the cast at the time, and John Cowley always spoke with bitterness of the way the series was dropped. In recent years, when the Solstice Arts Centre in Navan paid tribute to Cowley, Tom Hickey was due to take part, but sadly was unable to due to his illness.

He was best known as a stage actor in latter years, especially for his performance as ‘The Gallant John Joe’ in the Tom McIntyre one-man play.

Earlier this year, Gabriel Byrne paid tribute to John Cowley for his influence on his career.

“Like most people in Ireland I was brought up on Sunday night watching The Riordans,” he said. “When I was asked to join, it was the strangest of situations because all of a sudden I was among these characters that I felt I knew so well.

“I wasn’t talking to the actors, I was talking to their characters, Tom Riordan, or that, but after a while I got

used to it. Because at that time there were only two channels, the series was so well watched that overnight you became instantly known. When The Riordans ceased they developed a new series called Bracken which was

based around my character, and that was a very different experience.

“You could work with John Cowley or Tom Hickey on the farm in The Riordans and they really knew about farming. John Cowley could strip an engine while he was giving you the lines. It was a marvellous form of acting school.”

• ‘The Riordans: Tea, Taboos, and Tractors’, RTE 1, Sunday, 7.30pm.