The various stories concern the life of an Irish ex-British Army officer, Major Sinclair Yeates, recently appointed a Resident Magistrate (R.M.)
"[1] Morristown Lattin – the house used as Aussolas Castle, the residence of Beryl Reid's incarnation of the erstwhile Mrs Knox (located at Newhall, Naas in County Kildare), was badly damaged by fire following completion of filming for the series.
Major Yeates (Peter Bowles) is portrayed as an Englishman, and much of the humour of the first series derives from his difficulty in adjusting to the more relaxed class boundaries and slower pace of life of rural Ireland.
The timeline of the television series begins in 1897, when the Major departs for Ireland, and ends shortly after the death of Edward VII.
has to deal with all sorts of everyday events with colourful characters, often being outfoxed by the machinations of his Anglo-Irish friend, Flurry Knox (Bryan Murray).
One of the show's key strengths lies in its ability to convey the extent to which the lives of the Anglo-Irish gentry and the simple, if rather stilted local characters, often became inadvertently intertwined to produce the memorable comic effects that are so unique to the Irish psyche.