''Ballylenon'' is a radio

situation comedy A sitcom (short for situation comedy or situational comedy) is a genre of comedy produced for radio and television, that centers on a recurring cast of character (arts), characters as they navigate humorous situations within a consistent settin ...

set in a small village in

County Donegal County Donegal ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county of the Republic of Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster and is the northernmost county of Ireland. The county mostly borders Northern Ireland, sharing only a small b ...

in Ireland in the 1950s. The six series totalling 30 half-hour episodes were originally broadcast on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

from 1994 until 1999. The series was written by Christopher FitzSimon, and it starred T P McKenna, Stella McCusker and Margaret D'Arcy. A seventh and eighth series were broadcast in 2009 and 2010. Music arranged and performed by Stephanie Hughes (Michael Harrison in Series 7 and 8). ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'''s radio columnist

Gillian Reynolds Gillian Reynolds (née Morton; born 15 November 1935) is an English radio critic. After writing for ''The Guardian'' from 1967 to 1974, she was the radio critic for ''The Daily Telegraph'' for over 42 years, from 1975 to 2018. She then continued ...

cheered at the show's 1995 return, calling it "neat, witty, and perfect", and called the 1999 season "the perfect haven just now from all the mud, blood and studs everywhere else." In ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', Elisabeth Mahoney found the writing in the show's 2009 season to be "a delicious mix of gentle and sharp, vividly bringing to life the rhythms of speech and social interaction in this Irish village setting". In 2020, BBC Audio made the complete show, all eight series, available as an audiobook.

Cast

Regular cast

* Phonsie Doherty – T P McKenna (Series 1–6), Gerard Murphy (Series 7–8) * Muriel McConkey – Margaret D'Arcy * Vera McConkey – Stella McCusker * Vivienne Boal/Hawthorne – Aine McCartney * Stumpy Bonner – Gerard McSorley * Guard Bernie Gallagher – John Hewitt (Series 1–6), Frankie McCafferty (Series 7–8) * Rev Samuel Hawthorne – Gerard Murphy (Series 1–6), Miche Doherty (Series 7), Dermot Crowley (Series 8)

Recurring cast

* Josie Doherty – Ciara McKeown (Series 3), Cathy White (Series 4 and 5), Ali White (Series 6) * Aubrey Frawley – Dominic Letts (Series 1), Matthew Addis (Series 7), Chris McHallem (Series 8) * Packy McGoldrick – Charlie Bonnar (Series 3 and 5), Tim Loane (Series 4) * Peg Sweeney – Anna Manahan, Marcella Riordan (Series 5)

Guest cast

* Polly Acton – Joanna Munro * Terry Black – Mark Lambert * Mr Boylan – Derek Bailey * Consuela Dooley – Cathy Belton * Eamonn Doyle – Patrick Fitzsymons * Jonathan Ffrench O'Dowd – Wesley Murphy * Primrose Ffrench O'Dowd, Eithne Ni Phartalain – Marcella Riordan * Canon Friel, O'Brollachain – Kevin Flood * Mr Mawhinney – Harry Towb * Monsignor McFadden – Niall Cusack * Father O'Flatley – John Guiney * Daniel O’Searcaigh – James Greene * Bohunkus Smith – BJ Hogg * RL Watson – Roma Tomelty

References

External links