An extract from 'The Riordans' a drama set on the farm of Tom Riordan. Tom Riordan visits Eamon Maher who is tidying his house in prepartion for his wife Eily's return from hospital. Eamon shows Tom a see through nightie he has bought for Eily.

Meanwhile on the Riordan farm Mary Riordan chats with Minnie Brennan. Tom's son Benjy Riordan and Batty Brennan prepare a tractor and discuss Christmas.

'The Riordans', Ireland's first rural soap opera, was first broadcast in January 1965. Writer James Douglas set the drama on a a midlands farm and centred it around the owner Tom Riordan, his family, friends and neighbours.

The production of 'The Riordans' was ground-breaking in that it was shot using television's Outside Broadcast Unit on a real farm. This innovation would be copied by other broadcasters around the world.

The actual farm was Flat House in Dunboyne, owned by Mr William Connolly. The farm house and yard were to be Tom Riordan's farm, while two of the rooms in the Connolly farmhouse were made into 'sets' for the priest's parlour and the Riordans' kitchen.

The popular weekly drama was broadcast on television from 1965 to 1979. In 1979 'The Riordans' was taken off television and became a radio drama until it finally finished in 1985.

The extract here is from an episode broadcast 12 December 1972 titled 'Eamon Visits Eily'.

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