Kilcoole the focal point for new series

March 1983

WHEN the new RTE television follow-up to the very successful ‘Bracken’ series appears on our screens later this year, it will prove well worth watching for north Wicklow viewers.

For the new series is very firmly set in the north Wicklow area, and will feature many well known local places and people as extras.

The new series is being produced under the working title of ‘Glendarragh’ and will follow the lives of two of the main characters in ‘Bracken’.

They are father and son Dinny and Miley played by Joe Lynch and Michael Lally, who in the new series have moved away from the sheep hills to take up careers as market gardeners in north Wicklow.

AS senior production assistant Ann Farrelly- O’Loughlin puts it, the pair have gotten out of sheep and emigrated 20 miles!

A Greystones resident herself, Ann explained that Bray, Greystones and other North Wicklow locations will figure prominently in the series.

The biggest focus will be on the little village of Kilcoole, in much the same way as Dunboyne became Leestown in ‘ The Riordans’.

Local people in Kilcoole can expect to get used to the presence of RTE production crew and actors in the village over the coming weeks, starting at 11 a.m. on March 10, when a scene featuring a parade with lots of extras will be shot.

Other parts in the series are being played by a relatively unknown cast. Included here is Barry Lynch, a young actor who takes over the heartthrob role played by Gabriel Byrne in Bracken.

Vinnie McCabe takes on the hard man role, while the female interest comes from Faye Howard in the role of Miley’s belle and Carmel Callen as a young punk-rocker.

As was the case with ‘ The Riordans’ and ‘Bracken’, Wesley Burrowes – who lives in Bray – is again writing the script.