Ballykissangel Information

Ballykissangel is a BBC television drama 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 RT"? One and in Australia on ABC TV from 1996 to 2001. Reruns currently air on Yesterday in the United Kingdom and in the United States on some PBS affiliates.

Significant changes in the cast occurred between the third and fourth series and between the fifth and sixth series.

There was a surprised reaction from both the cast and press when it was announced that Ballykissangel was to end. Several articles at the time of the show's cancellation stated that a seventh series had been written and the cast were due to start filming in May 2001. Following the cancellation a seventh series was never put into production.

The name of the fictional village in which the show was set is derived from Ballykissane, a townland near Killorglin in County Kerry, where the show's creator, Kieran Prendiville, holidayed with his family as a child. The village's name in Irish is shown as "Baile Coisc Aingeal", which means "The town of the fallen angel" on the sign outside the post office.

The show was filmed in Avoca and Enniskerry in County Wicklow.

Cast

Character	Series
	Series 1 (1996)	Series 2 (1997)	Series 3 (1997"1998)	Series 4 (1998)	Series 5 (1999)	Series 6 (2001)
The clergy
Father Frank MacAnally	Niall Toibin
Father Peter Clifford	Stephen Tompkinson
Father Aidan O'Connell				Don Wycherley
Father Vincent Sheahan						Robert Taylor
Landladies/bar staff
Assumpta Fitzgerald	Dervla Kirwan
Niamh Quigley	Tina Kellegher
Orla O'Connell				Victoria Smurfit
Oonagh Dooley					Marion O'Dwyer
Garda
Ambrose Egan	Peter Hanly
Frankie Sullivan					Catherine Cusack
The other villagers
Donal Docherty	Frankie McCafferty
Liam Coghlan	Joe Savino
Siobhan Mehigan	Deirdre Donnelly
Brendan Kearney	Gary Whelan
Kathleen Hendley	Áine Ní Mhuirí
Brian Quigley	Tony Doyle
Dr Michael Ryan	Bosco Hogan
Eamon Byrne	Birdy Sweeney
Padraig O'Kelly	Peter Caffrey
Sean Dillon				Lorcan Cranitch
Emma Dillon				Kate McEnery
Danny Byrne				Colin Farrell
Paul Dooley	Owen Roe				Owen Roe
Dermot Dooley					Ciaran Owens
Grainne Dooley					Katie Cullen
Avril Burke						Susannah Doyle
Edso Dowling						Paul Ronan
Louis Dargan						Mick Lally
Kevin O'Kelly		John Cleere
Kieran Egan			Sam Farrar

Episodes

See List of Ballykissangel episodes for more information The programme ran for six series from 11 February 1996 to 15 April 2001. Almost all episodes were 50 minutes in duration.

DVD release

All six series have been released in Region 1, 2 and 4. In 2010, four years after the release of series 5, series 6 was released on Region 2, along with a box set of series 1-6.

The ninth episode of series 3, "The Waiting Game", is omitted from the Region 2 series 3 DVD. This is not the case for Region 1 (North America) sets, which contain this episode.