Biddy White Lennon, Actress and Writer, RIP

Kerry Drama Festival 1992 adjudicator, Biddy White Lennon planting a tree on the the developing river-walk in Castleisland. She was in the company of: Eileen Brennan, Jean Horgan, John Keane, Mike Kenny, Eileen Hartnett and festival director, Jerome Stack. ©Photograph: John Reidy 11-3-1992

Festival adjudicator, Biddy White Lennon (left) congratulates Island Players cast member, Danny Broderick after she announced that he had won the ‘Best Supporting Actor Award’ for his part of ‘Tom Maher’ in The Country Boy’ at the 1992 Kerry Drama Festival. On right is Island Players member, Patricia Burke. ©Photograph: John Reidy 13-3-1992

Shoestring Theatre Company director, Kevin O’Shea accepting the Ivy Leaf Perpetual Trophy from Daisy O’Connor after his group won the 1992 Kerry Drama Festival with Wild Harvest by Ken Bourke. On left is festival adjudicator, Biddy White Lennon. ©Photograph: John Reidy 13-3-1992

She was, by a country mile, one of the best loved, well known and highly respected figures for a generation of Irish television viewers.

Biddy White-Lennon, actress, food writer and critic R.I.P.

People who didn’t have sets of their own went rambling on the Sunday night just before ‘The Riordan’s’ starting time.

End of the Episode

There would be general banter until the theme music began and ne’er a word until it was heard again to signal the end of the episode.

Playing the role of Maggie back then, she and ‘Benjy’ (Tom Hickey) and the rest of the cast held the nation spellbound.

It was like a mirror being held up to us all in rural Ireland by writer Wesley Burrows and the crew of the long running series from 1965 to 1979.

Mission in Africa

When Tom Hickey left The Riordans in the late 1970s he was supposed to be going away as a lay missioner.

A Tralee viewer wrote to The RTÉ Guide at the time to wish him well in his work in the mission fields of Africa. It was that real to many people at the time.

The late Biddy White Lennon was also a well established writer on food matters and she chaired the Irish Food Writers’ Guild.

Best Supporting Actor

In 1992 she visited Castleisland to adjudicate on that year’s Kerry Drama Festival. In her deliberations she picked out the late Danny Broderick as the Best Supporting Actor for his role as Tom Maher in The Country Boy by Co. Mayo playwright, John Murphy.

Take a step back in time with a click on the RTE Greatest Themes LP, image above. From 1987 it features 7 Days / The Riordans / Wanderly Wagon / Today Tonight / The Late Late Show / Glenroe / Strumpet City.

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