Late writer Wesley Burrowes best remembered for ‘Glenroe’

As principal writer of two hugely popular television series based in rural Ireland, Wesley Burrowes had an unlikely background.

He was a Northern Protestant, born (in 1930) and reared in Bangor, Co Down, a former insurance salesman, whose father was a civil servant in the Stormont of the old days.

Educated in the Protestant Belfast secondary school, Instonians, and later at Queen’s University, he studied French and German, graduating in 1952.

He moved immediately to Dublin to join the "very Protestant" Commercial Insurance Company, as he described it to The Irish Times in 2001.

He said he got the job because he was a Protestant, and he regularly advised Catholic employees to leave, as they had no chance of promotion unless they “turned their coat”.

Comic sketches

In 1959 he got a job in Córas Tráchtála as an adviser on the furniture trade, about which he knew "not a great deal". He also wrote review material - comic sketches for the likes of Des Keogh, Dave Kelly, Cecil Sheridan and Rosaleen Linehan.

He co-wrote the musical Carrie for the 1963 Dublin Theatre Festival, which starred Milo O'Shea and Ray McAnally. Its success encouraged him to resign from Coras Trachtála to write full time.

He got his first break in television in 1964 when he replaced Maura Laverty as scriptwriter on RTÉ Television's drama series, Tolka Row. Two years later, he became editor and chief scriptwriter for the station's first long-running rural soap opera, The Riordans.

‘Fairly primitive’

The initial idea for The Riordans came from the then controller of programmes at Telefís Éireann (as RTÉ was then known), Scandinavian Gunner Rugheimer, and it was devised with the objective of "helping Irish farmers understand modern agricultural methods. We were regarded as fairly primitive in our farming methods - hand-milking and all that kind of thing," he recalled.

It was during the second year of that series that he become involved as the principal scriptwriter for The Riordans. His initial instinct was that the series would not last for more than three months.

Actor Tom Hickey, who played Benjy in the series, remembered how Burrowes and new director Lelia Doolan transformed the show.

“Wesley went to live in rural Kilkenny [where The Riordans was set] and absorbed the life around him. Lelia was an insightful and demanding director who got the best out of cast and crew,” the actor said.

Gabriel Byrne

Burrows went on to create another rural soap, Bracken, which featured Gabriel Byrne in the lead role of Pat Barry.

The late writer will probably be best remembered for the creation in 1983 of Glenroe - a spin-off from Bracken that became one of RTÉ's most popular ever drama series.

He won three Jacob's Awards 1965, 1974, and 1976 - the last two specifically for his work on The Riordans.

In July 2000 he scripted the film Rat which received its world premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh. A second film on which he was scriptwriter, Mystics, was released in 2003.

One of his less-known achievements was that he composed the lyrics to Ireland's entry for the 1967 Eurovision Song Contest, If I Could Choose, which came second.

He was also a keen bridge player who represented Ireland in international competition.