Ballykissangel

Ballykissangel is a BBC television drama created by Kieran Prendiville and set in Ireland, produced in-house by BBC Northern Ireland. The original story revolved around a young English Roman Catholic priest as he became part of a rural community. It ran for six series, which were first broadcast on BBC One in the United Kingdom from 1996 to 2001. It aired in Ireland on RTÉ One and in Australia on ABC TV from 1996 to 2001. Repeats have been shown on Drama in the United Kingdom and in the United States on some PBS affiliates. The series was made and set during the Celtic Tiger economic period in Ireland and this features mainly through Tony Doyle’s character, Brian Quigley. The show is also set amid the backdrop of the Catholic Church scandal and explores controversial themes of the time such as divorce (which had only been legalised a year before the series began), and pre-marital sex. Dervla Kirwan’s and Niall Toibin’s characters are often at odds, symbolising the social conflict between traditional Ireland and social liberalisation. Significant changes in the cast occurred at the end of series 3 following the departure of central characters Peter Clifford and Assumpta Fitzgerald. A band of new characters were brought in and characters that previously had little story were expanded, such as Kathleen, Niamh, Frank and Brian. The show faced a decline in ratings from a peak level of 10 million viewers to 4.8 million and was eventually cancelled in 2001.