With shimmering views of Dublin Bay from the sittingroom windows and the village main street over the garden wall, theatre director Niall ╙ Sioradβin and his brother Rossa are supremely content in their top floor apartment on Blackrock's Idrone Terrace.

Both went straight into the entertainment business after graduating from college - influenced like many of today's big names by UCD's student drama society, DRAMSOC. Rossa is a scriptwriter and works in broadcasting.

Niall is a founder member of ═omhβ Ildβnach, which manages the tiny Crypt Theatre in Dublin Castle. Fluent native speakers, the brothers are currently working on R∅ Rβ, a new comedy series which will be screened at the end of the month on TG4. Rossa is co-writer of the series and Niall has a starring role.

Niall is probably better known as the actor who played the vet in the TnaG soap Ros Na R·n. More recently, he was the nasty truck driver in RTE's Fair City. Producing stage drama, however, is Niall's main preoccupation.

They moved into the £1,000 (€1,269.74) a month top-floor flat last year, after a long search for suitable accommodation in the south Dublin area. The rent is steep, but the unbeatable location and tall airy rooms make it worth every penny, they say.

"Rossa and I have been together for five years and we haven't killed each other yet!" says Niall. "Dad's been ten years dead this year and our mother died in 1993. It was a huge thing to happen.

"We moved nine times in the first year and it wasn't a happy time for us at all. Without a family home, you've no base. Moving anywhere becomes a major thing because there's no place to store things.

"Rossa was working with a relative of the owner of this flat, so we got a look at it before anyone else. In the place we were in before this, the landlord decided to sell. It was the same with the place before that. We just got notice to go and, of course, there was no contract. Yet if you are in breach of the lease, the landlord can keep your deposit.

"Logic dictates that if you can pay £1,000 for an apartment, you can easily pay a mortgage. We could get a loan, but with ridiculous house prices, you're talking over £200,000 to live anywhere near here", says Niall.

"You probably can make money in theatre, but it's very difficult. I know a few actors who own their own houses - you need an understanding bank manager."

═omhβ Ildβnach has a reputation for producing avant garde work, much of which hasn't been seen before in Dublin. Niall and his friend John O'Brien took over The Crypt in 1984 after producing Single White Male.

Now they employ 17 people and programme the theatre 45 weeks in the year.

The company has just finished a run of The Promise of Sex, a season of plays by Howard Barker, at the Project theatre. They also create their own work, says Niall.

"We devised Single White Male together and I scripted it. Normally we use The Crypt, but this year the programme was too big and we had to go elsewhere. We also do bilingual work for primary schools. For a while, the Arts Council didn't know where to place us.

"We have a history of difficulties with the Arts Council - but the Council changes every five years and we have a better relationship with the new people. They gave us capital to buy equipment and fit out the theatre, but not to act or produce work.

"The frustrating thing is they wouldn't tell us why. We've got more funding this year but it was a very close thing."

Rossa recently co-produced a pilot for a new television quiz show, which he hopes will take off in a big way. "He knows where the money is," laughs Niall.

Many of the brothers' friends work in theatre, although with actors changing jobs every eight to twelve weeks, they meet new people all the time. Niall considers himself lucky to be involved with The Crypt, because even their most talented actor friends are finding the work precarious.

"They can just be unlucky - I know really good actors who go six months without working at all. Nowadays, you don't get to be on the dole for six months. But if actors are forced to do a training course or take a job, they can't just drop out if they're called for a film or a show.

"We don't often take work home. We use the Crypt for meetings and rehearsals because it's so central. In this business, you have to work long days, so I don't want to come home and have a professional meeting.

"It's brilliant living here. The DART is 30 seconds away and I can be into rehearsals in the morning in 30 minutes. When we lived in Milltown, I drove to The Crypt and it took up to an hour."