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The Riordans
''The Riordans'' is an Irish television Soap opera broadcast on RTÉ from 1965 to 1979 set in the fictional townland of Leestown in County Kilkenny. Its location filming with outside broadcast units, rather than using only television studios, broke the mould of broadcasting in the drama serial genre and inspired the creation of its British equivalent, '' Emmerdale Farm'' (now called ''Emmerdale'') by Yorkshire Television in 1972. Plot The main characters in the serial, the Riordan farming family, consisted of middle-aged parents, Tom and Mary Riordan, their eldest son Benjy, and younger sons Michael and Jude who had left farming for other careers and who had more adventurous personal lives. Other leading characters included the family doctor, his Protestant gentry-born wife, the (radical Vatican II-oriented) Catholic priest, the conservative Church of Ireland rector, the local pub owner, some nomadic Irish Travellers, and others. Cast * John Cowley (actor), John Cowley as T ...
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Soap Opera
A soap opera (also called a daytime drama or soap) is a genre of a long-running radio or television Serial (radio and television), serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term ''soap opera'' originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored by soap manufacturers.Bowles, p. 118. The term was preceded by ''horse opera'', a derogatory term for low-budget Western (genre), Westerns. According to some dictionaries, for something to be adequately described as a soap opera, it need not be long-running; but some authors define the word in a way that excludes short-running serial dramas from their definition. BBC Radio's ''The Archers'', first Broadcasting, broadcast in 1950, is the world's longest-running soap opera. The longest-running television soap opera is ''Coronation Street'', which was first broadcast on ITV (TV network), ITV in 1960. According to Albert Moran, one of the defining features that make a television program a soap ...
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Biddy White Lennon
Biddy White Lennon (5 September 1946 – 25 November 2017) was an Irish actress and food writer. Life White Lennon was born in Dublin and began acting when she was four. Her mother was Ursula White, a drama professor who ran a school of acting in the Pocket Theatre at Ely Place (one of her students was Joe Dowling while Deirdre O'Connell used the school as her foundation for the Stanislavski Studio). Her father died while she was under ten. White Lennon started in ''The Riordans ''The Riordans'' is an Irish television Soap opera broadcast on RTÉ from 1965 to 1979 set in the fictional townland of Leestown in County Kilkenny. Its location filming with outside broadcast units, rather than using only television studios ...'' when the programme first aired in January 1965. She played the role of Maggie Riordan (née Nael), daughter-in-law of the matriarch and wife of Benjy, and she remained on the show until its cancellation in 1979. When the series was brought to the radi ...
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The Kennedys Of Castleross
''The Kennedys of Castleross'' was an Irish serial drama or soap opera, about a family from Castleross, broadcast on Raidió Éireann from 1955 to 1973. The serial was devised by Arks advertising agency on behalf of its client, Fry-Cadbury. The Fry-Cadbury Ireland Sales and Marketing Director Raymond Sellers (later Chairman & MD) was aware of the success and quality of the serial drama The Archers on the BBC Home Service in his native UK from its launch in 1951 and had commissioned the Arks advertising agency to devise, develop and produce a similar popular rural radio serial, set in Ireland and tailored for an Irish audience, which could fit in two weekly 15 minute sponsored programme slots on Raidió Éireann. The first script writers were Mark Grantham and Bill Nugent.''The Irish Times'', "An Irishman's Diary", 16 January 1965 The first episode was broadcast on 14 April 1955. The cast included Marie Kean, T. P. McKenna, Vincent Dowling, Angela Newman, and Philip O'Flyn ...
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Radio Éireann
Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connected to an antenna which radiates the waves. They can be received by other antennas connected to a radio receiver; this is the fundamental principle of radio communication. In addition to communication, radio is used for radar, radio navigation, remote control, remote sensing, and other applications. In radio communication, used in radio and television broadcasting, cell phones, two-way radios, wireless networking, and satellite communication, among numerous other uses, radio waves are used to carry information across space from a transmitter to a receiver, by modulating the radio signal (impressing an information signal on the radio wave by varying some aspect of the wave) in the transmitter. In radar, used to locate and track objects like air ...
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Working Class
The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most common definitions of "working class" in use in the United States limit its membership to workers who hold blue-collar and pink-collar jobs, or whose income is insufficiently high to place them in the middle class, or both. However, socialists define "working class" to include all workers who fall into the category of requiring income from wage labour to subsist; thus, this definition can include almost all of the working population of industrialized economies. Definitions As with many terms describing social class, ''working class'' is defined and used in different ways. One definition used by many socialists is that the working class includes all those who have nothing to sell but their labour, a group otherwise referred to as the p ...
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Tolka Row
''Tolka Row'' is an Irish television drama serial that aired on RTE One from 1964 to 1968, set in a fictional housing estate on the northside of Dublin. Based on Maura Laverty's play of the same name, ''Tolka Row'' was first broadcast on 3 January 1964 and aired weekly for five series until it ended on 31 May 1968. As Telefís Éireann's first venture into drama serials, ''Tolka Row'' quickly became a staple of the new station's schedule and set the pace for all future home-produced serials. Its popularity also resulted in the station developing a second drama serial, '' The Riordans'', in 1965. ''Tolka Row'' is similar in format to the long-running British serial ''Coronation Street'', from which it borrows its main premise (the everyday life of a number of neighbours). The programme was centred on the Nolans, a typical working-class Dublin family, and their neighbours, the Feeneys. All episodes were filmed in a studio at Telefís Éireann's Television Centre in Donnybro ...
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Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel James Byrne (born 12 May 1950) is an Irish actor. He has received a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for a Grammy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Tony Awards. Byrne was awarded the Irish Film and Television Academy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018 and was listed at number 17 on ''The Irish Times'' list of Ireland's greatest film actors in 2020. In 2009 ''The Guardian'' named him one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination. Byrne's acting career began at the Focus Theatre in Dublin before he joined London's Royal Court Theatre in 1974. His screen debut came in the Irish drama serial '' The Riordans'' and the spin-off show ''Bracken''. He went on to star in such films as '' Defence of the Realm'' (1986), '' Lionheart'' (1987), '' Miller's Crossing'' (1990), '' Little Women'' (1994), ''Dead Man'' (1995), '' The Usual Suspects'' (1995), '' The Man in the Iron Mask'' (1998), '' Enemy of the State'' (1998), '' Vanity Fair'' ...
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Christopher Casson
Christopher T. Casson (20 March 1912 – 9 July 1996) was an English-born actor who became a citizen of Ireland in 1946. His work included stage, screen, radio and television roles. His portrayal of a Church of Ireland canon in the long-running series ''The Riordans'' made him known nationwide. Life and work He was born in Prestwich, Lancashire, the youngest son of actors Sybil Thorndike and Lewis Casson. He made his stage debut at age three in ''Julius Caesar'' at the Old Vic. After a brief naval career he enrolled at the Central School of Dramatic Art at the Royal Albert Hall. He began his professional career in 1930. He toured Egypt, Palestine, Australia and New Zealand during the 1930s. In 1938 he joined the Hilton Edwards and Micheál Mac Liammóir company at the Gate Theatre in Dublin. He married the Irish stage designer and artist Kay O'Connell in 1941, with Mac Liammóir as his best man. They had two daughters. He became a Roman Catholic in 1946. He worked with Longf ...
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Rachel Burrows
Rachel Burrows (29 April 1912 – 15 April 1987) was an Irish actress, broadcaster, and teacher. Biography Rachel Burrows was born in Limerick on 29 April 1912. She was the daughter of the county surveyor for County Clare, Peter Le Fanu Knowles Dobbin, and his second wife Kathleen (Kitty) (née Vance). She was descended from Richard Brinsley Sheridan and James Sheridan Knowles. She grew up in Kilkishen House, County Clare and attended St Brandon's School in Bristol. Burrows attended Trinity College Dublin (TCD), graduating with a BA with first-class honours in 1933, followed by an M.Litt. in 1947. While attending TCD she was one of the founding members of the Dublin University Players. On 28 April 1934, she married the Rev. George Henry Jerram Burrows (died 2003), the former headmaster of the Cork grammar school and canon of the cathedrals of St Fin Barre and Ross. The couple had two daughters. From 1937 to 1947 she taught English in Limerick, before moving with her famil ...
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Vincent Smith (actor)
Vincent Smith may refer to: *Vince Powell (1928–2009), born Vincent Smith, television writer *Vin Smith (1913–1995), Australian footballer * Vince Smith (politician) (1938–2008), Australian politician *Vince Smith (boxer), English boxer * Vincent Smith (''Chuck'') * Vincent Smith (American football) (born 1990), American football player * Vince Smith (cybertaxonomist) * Vincent Smith (politician) (born 1960), South African politician * Vincent Smith (television presenter) (1943–1991), Australian journalist and broadcaster *Vincent Arthur Smith (1848–1920), Irish-born Indologist, historian and art historian * Vincent D. Smith (1929–2003) American artist, teacher, painter and printmaker known for his vivid and colorful depictions of Black life *Vincent Powell-Smith (1939–1997), British barrister and author * Vincent Reynolds Smith (1890–1960), judge and politician in Saskatchewan, Canada *Vinnie Smith Vincent Ambrose Smith (December 7, 1915 – December 14, 1979) was ...
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Ann Rowan
Ann Rowan (1928/1929 - 10 August 2014) was an Irish actress. She was best known for her role as Julia Mac in the RTÉ television soap opera ''The Riordans''. She also had roles in the television series ''Father Ted'' and ''Screen Two''. She made appearances in the movie A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...s '' Ulysses'' (1967) and '' The Outsider'' (1980). Rowan died on 10 August 2014 after a short illness. She is not to be confused with international author, Ann Rowan, who wrote Rapture Revelation published September 2014. Filmography References External links * 1920s births 2014 deaths Irish film actresses Irish television actresses Irish stage actresses Year of birth missing {{Ireland-actor-stub ...
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Bairbre Dowling
Bairbre Dowling (; ; 27 March 1953 – 20 January 2016) was an Irish actress of screen and stage. She began her career as a child actor in Francis Ford Coppola's first feature, ''Dementia 13'' (1963). She would go on to appear in multiple films, including John Huston's final feature, ''The Dead (1987 film), The Dead'' (1987), based on the James Joyce novella The Dead (Joyce short story), of the same name. On television, Dowling was best known for her role as Josie Tracy on the long-running RTÉ drama serial ''The Riordans'', which aired from 1965-1979. In 1983, she starred as Margaret Flaherty in the Emmy Awards, Emmy Award winning television film adaptation of J. M. Synge's ''The Playboy of the Western World'' for PBS. Her other television credits included guest spots on ''1st & Ten (1984 TV series), 1st & Ten'', ''Scarlett (miniseries), Scarlett'', ''Murder, She Wrote'', ''ER (TV series), ER'', ''Star Trek: Voyager'', ''Crossing Jordan'', and ''Days of Our Lives''. A veteran ...
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