In this four-part Irish drama, a tyrannical patriarch’s grip on his daughters loosens as they seek lives of their own.
The serial chronicles the life of Moran (Tony Doyle), a stern widower and veteran of the Irish War of Independence, who rules his rural household and his five children with an iron will. His daughters, Magie (Susan Lynch), Mona (Geraldine O’Rawe), and Sheila (Anne-Marie Duff), struggle to find their own paths under his suffocating gaze. When Moran remarries a gentle local woman, Rose (Ger Ryan), the family dynamic shifts, but his deep-seated bitterness and memories of conflict continue to shape their lives, forcing his children to choose between loyalty and escape.
Adrian Hodges’ dramatisation of the celebrated John McGahern novel is a work of immense fidelity and quiet power. The production is most notable for the final, towering performance of Tony Doyle as the patriarch Moran. He plays the ageing revolutionary not as a simple tyrant, but as a man whose affection is inseparable from his need for control. His personal history, steeped in the violence of the Irish War of Independence, becomes a suffocating presence in the lives of his children. Director Tom Cairns crafts a production defined by a melancholic, painterly visual style, capturing both the beauty of the rural landscape and the claustrophobia of the family home.
Broadcast: BBC 2, 4 Episodes, 15 July 1998 – 5 August 1998
Based on the novel by: John McGahern
Dramatised by: Adrian Hodges
Director: Tom Cairns
Producers: Jonathan Curling, Colin Tucker
Executive Producers: Robert Cooper, Alan Moloney, Rod Stoneman, Claire Duignan
Music: Niall Byrne
Main Cast: Tony Doyle (Moran), Ger Ryan (Rose), Susan Lynch (Magie), Geraldine O’Rawe (Mona), Anne-Marie Duff (Sheila), Brian F. O’Byrne (Luke), Eamon Owens (Michael)
Guest Cast: Britta Smith, John Olohan, Demien McAdam, Ronan Leahy, Gary Lydon, Robin Summers, Barry McGovern, Don Baker, Kieran Ahern
