Resistance Andrea Byrne visits the set of RTÉ’s major new historical drama and meets its stars, Brian Gleeson and Simone Kirby
As RTÉ’s major historical drama series Resistance begins this week, Andrea Byrne heads to the set to meet some of the cast and crew
It’s a bitterly cold November evening and the cast and crew of the War of Independence drama Resistance are in the throes of lming in the foothills of the Dublin mountains. It’s a scene involving a girl named Molly McBride being dragged out of her home and having her hair chopped o by two members of the Black and Tans. As the temperature plummets, that actress playing Molly, Suzanne Vacht is cocooned in a heavy blanket between takes.
Resistance is the follow-up series to Rebellion, which focused on the 1916 Rising and was broadcast to coincide with the commemorative celebrations. is latest instalment, which has largely the same creative team, including writer Colin Teevan and producer Catherine Magee, is set in 1920. With a core of welldeveloped ctional characters at its heart, the ve-part, big-budget historical drama explores the unrest in Ireland a er the events of Bloody Sunday on November 21, 1920. as the War of Independence reaches its climax.
Brian Gleeson, one of the country’s most indemand actors, returns as the main character Jimmy Mahon. ‘‘It is set four years later so it feels like a new chapter. It doesn’t feel like a direct sequel’’, Brian explains, over a co ee in his trailer. ‘‘ e way Colin has written it, he has landed us right in the middle of the War of Independence, so there’s no explaining how they got there, which is great; you’re just thrown into the thick of it. When we meet