The Riordans is an Irish television Soap opera broadcast on RTÉ from 1965 to 1979 set in the fictional townland of Leestown in County Kilkenny.

Other leading characters included the family doctor, his Protestant gentry-born wife, the (radical Vatican II-oriented) Catholic priest, the conservative Church of Ireland rector, the local pub owner, some nomadic Irish Travellers, and others.

In 1964 the fledgling Telefís Éireann had launched Tolka Row, a drama serial set in a working class part of Dublin.

[2] The drama was written by James Douglas and later Wesley Burrowes, who derived much of his inspiration from engaging with and observing the lives of the locals in Kells, County Kilkenny.

John Cowley, who played the patriarch of the family, Tom Riordan was from real farming stock in Ardbraccan in County Meath and many of the issues his character had to deal with reflected his experiences in rural Ireland.

[citation needed] Among the many series writers were James Douglas (the creator of the show), Wesley Burrowes, Pat O'Connor, Eugene McCabe, and Tom Coffey.

[4] Location filming was previously avoided for technical and financial reasons; firstly, it was reliant on weather conditions, which meant it was difficult to manage costs.

Telefís Éireann decided however to film most of The Riordans on location given that creating a farm set was not possible around the Dublin city studios at Montrose.

The striking difference in ages of the couple (she was his senior by twenty years, and as Minnie Brennan was made to look even older through make-up) became a source of comment among viewers, as some noted in letters to the show that she was old enough on screen to convincingly play his mother.

In the words of academic Dr Finola Kennedy, The Riordans "introduced one of the most sensitive issues in rural family life – the links between property, farm ownership and marriage at the very time of the debate on the Succession Bill".

In the 1970s, the characters Tom and Benjy featured in a television advertisement urging farmers to have metal-framed cabs put onto tractors to protect themselves from injury should the vehicle overturn.

Other issues raised were illegitimacy, poverty, the problems of old age, marriage break-up, sexual activity, the dramatic changes in the post-Vatican II Catholic Church, and contraception, when it was revealed that Benjy's wife, Maggie, for medical reasons could not risk having a second pregnancy.

While the programme had declined somewhat from its heyday, it still regularly battled with The Late Late Show to top the TAM audience ratings and there was some surprise when one episode, which unusually departed from the 1970s and focused on Tom Riordan as a young man in the 1930s at a céilí, was critically acclaimed by the media and many older viewers, who viewed it as an accurate representation of life on an Irish farm in the past.

[citation needed] With its considerable popularity, large cast of respected actors, high production values and its central location on the schedules of RTÉ 1, few expected the programme to be cancelled.

Politician Tom Enright spoke of the decision in the Dáil in 1980: The programme was resurrected for RTÉ Radio 1 as a fifteen-minute daily show where it lasted a few years.

After the short interregnum Bracken, came Glenroe, another 'rural' show set, unlike The Riordans, on the fringes of a town close to Dublin, with some characters living in an urban housing estate.

After two decades that show itself was axed, leaving RTÉ with only one major homegrown soap opera, one that has no rural aspect at all, and is set in inner-city Dublin, Fair City.