Death and Nightingales

BBC TWO, 9.00PM

Eugene McCabe’s only full-length novel has been intelligently adapted by Allan Cubbitt ( The Fall), juxtaposing the sweeping countryside of Co Fermanagh in 1885 with the spiritual and political preoccupations of its residents. Cubitt’s reunion with Jamie Dornan may have taken the headlines, but Ann Skelly deserves as many plaudits, if not several more, for her gripping performance as young dreamer Beth Winters. This second episode finds Beth plotting to poison her stepfather Billy (Matthew Rhys); Beth and Liam (Dornan) hope to flee, but Billy becomes suspicious when Maurice (Pip Torrens) tries to blackmail him into offering up Liam as a suspected member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Fenians. Who spilt the beans?