Glenroe was an Irish television drama series broadcast between September 1983 and May 2001 on RTÉ One. The programme was a spin-off from Bracken, a short-lived RTÉ drama itself spun off from The Riordans. Glenroe was broadcast on Sunday nights at 20.30, generally from September to May. The show was created, and written for much of its run, by Wesley Burrowes. Glenroe was the first show to be subtitled by RTÉ, with a broadcast in 1991 starting the station's subtitling policy.^[1]

The programme centred on the lives of the people living in the fictional rural village of Glenroe in County Wicklow. The real-life village of Kilcoole was used to film the series. The main protagonists were the Byrne and McDermott/Moran families, related by the marriage of Miley Byrne to Biddy McDermott. Other characters included the Roman Catholic priest and the Church of Ireland Rector of the village (Tim Devereux and George Black respectively), Teasy McDaid, the proprietor of the local pub, Biddy's cousin Fidelma Kelly, and others.

It was axed in 2001.

The show[link]

A sign on the road approaching Kilcoole

Title sequence[link]

The programme was noted for its original title sequence, which featured the words "Gleann Rua" in Gaelic script morph into "Glenroe" over a series of rural images.

The original title sequence was used for the 1983/84 series to the end of the 1992/93 series; and was replaced with a more up-to-date title sequence at the start of the 1993/94 series. Glenroe's theme tune was that of a traditional Irish song called Cuaichín Ghleann Néifinn and was arranged by Jim Lockhart of Horslips. The original version was used from the 1983/84 to the end of the 1992/93 series. A newly recorded version, arranged by Máire Ní Bhraonáin of Clannad, was introduced with the start of the 1993/94 series, and the changes to the title sequence.

There was excitement in Dundalk on December 24, 1989 when the episode screened that evening featured two couples from the area who had won a prize from the People in Need Telethon to appear on the show.^[2] Brenda Fricker was in that episode.^[2] There was also lots of excitement for the famous Cork v Kilkenny hurling match that was played in Pairc Liam Mc Carthy in Ballygarvan, in County Cork in 1984. This match featured in the show when Miley travelled down to Cork to attend. He was asked at the last minute to throw in the sliotar at the start of the game.

A song from the series, The By-Road to Glenroe, performed by Mick Lally, was released as a single in Ireland in 1990, featuring the Jim Lockhart version of the theme tune as its B-side, and reached Number 1 in the Irish Singles Chart.

Plot[link]

This section requires expansion.

The programme focused on a cast of characters living in a rural area near the village pub. The main characters were Miley Byrne and Biddy McDermott whose courtship and marriage formed the centerpiece of the action during the early years. Their parents were also heavily featured in the storylines. Miley's father Dinny Byrne was a chancer and Biddy's mother, who was widowed early in the series, conducted a long-running relationship with Dick Moran, local solicitor. Dick occasionally had other affairs such as that with Terry Kileen.

Religion was featured in the programme on numerous occasions. When Miley, a devout Roman Catholic, believed his daughter, who had been critically ill with meningitis, was saved by prayer and divine intervention while Biddy, who rarely went to Mass credited their doctor with her recovery. The parish priest, Father Tim Devereaux, was upset that nobody was listening to his pastoral advice and retired to embark on a round-the-world cruise with Shirley Manning, a widow of Protestant and Jewish ancestry. One episode focused on how much money should be spent on a girl's First Communion dress.

In the fourteenth season, Tommy McArdle, the show's producer, introduced the travellers issue, frequently in the news at the time. The storyline involved Miley and Biddy trying to evict a family of travellers who parked their trailer on the edge of the farm. The episodes depicted the attitudes of some Irish people who believed that travellers were "stupid, dirty and dishonest". When two pet rabbits disappear the community suspects the travelers must have eaten them in a stew. Another storyline involved an extramarital affair between a traveller and an upper-middle-class local woman.^[3]

The final episode of the penultimate series saw the death of main character Biddy in a road accident involving her car and a tractor. The final series dealt largely with husband Miley's coming to terms with the loss of his wife and the struggles he faced in raising their two surviving daughters.^[4]

End[link]

On 19 January 2001, despite claims four years previously that it could run for another ten years,^[5] RTÉ announced that Glenroe was to end after eighteen series.^[6] The final episode of the Irish soap was to be broadcast the following May. RTÉ's Director of Television, Cathal Goan, said it had been clear for some time that Glenroe was "coming to the end of its natural life".^[7] This announcement came after a sequence of negative events involving cast members. Mary McEvoy (Biddy) resigned (her character was subsequently killed off in a road accident), Joe Lynch (Dinny) quit after being "shamefully treated" and offered "small potatoes" when he asked for a pay rise and by Mick Lally opted to split his schedule between RTÉ and the BBC show, Ballykissangel.^[8]

Lynch criticised RTÉ for preventing him from doing other acting work alongside Glenroe.

``I was terrible restricted in RTÉ they wouldn't let me off for anything, even commercials.``

He was also upset that he was not to get a pension but died soon afterwards.^[9]

The last episode of Glenroe was transmitted on 6 May 2001, attracting an audience of 591,000 viewers.^[10] Its place in the Sunday evening schedule was taken by On Home Ground, a drama series set at a fictional rural GAA club, which ran for two seasons from September 2001 until May 2003. Geraldine Plunkett also starred in the first 2 seasons of The Clinic, which ran for 7 seasons also on Sunday nights. Actor Mick Lally went on to join the cast of the TG4 drama series Ros na Rún in 2008.^[11]

The axing of Glenroe was remembered by Aoife Finneran in her review of that decade for the Evening Herald. Included in the same review for that year were the September 11 attacks, foot-and-mouth crisis, death of George Harrison and U2's two concerts at Slane.^[12]

Ratings[link]

• The series final episode attracted 591,000 viewers on Sunday May 6, 2001.^[14] At its height Glenroe achieved nearly one million viewers, during the 1990s it often had 700,000 viewers.

Characters[link]

Main characters[link]

Broadcasting details[link]

The show was also successful outside Ireland, although Glenroe was not networked, 13 of the 14 ITV regions had transmitted the series in the United Kingdom. After this point listings (which have been sourced from The Times Digital Archive) are no longer available.

• In December 1995, as part of a soap opera-themed weekend, Channel 4 broadcast an episode of Glenroe.

• The entire series also aired on SBS One in Australia and it also aired on the now defunct Irish American Channel in the United States of America.

• During the late 1990s Glenroe was also shown on the Tara Television network in the United Kingdom via cable and SkyDigital from 1997 to the closure of the station in 2002. Classic episodes were shown in the daytime and repeated in the early evenings on weekdays, and current episodes were simulcast with RTÉ on Sunday evenings during each season. Tara had reached the 1992/93 season of Glenroe at the time of the station's closure.