Fergal Browne
There was great excitement around the towns of Kinsale and Carrigaline in the month of September 1982 when the BBC began filming an adaptation of Molly Keane’s ‘Big House’ novel, ‘Good Behaviour’ in the area. Unusually for a book set in Co. Waterford, the BBC, having obtained the film rights to the book, decided to film in South Cork.
The Waterford born author, Molly Keane, had begun writing at a young age, under the pseudonym ‘M.J Farrell’. This was a name, which the Anglo-Irish author spotted over the door of a public house while returning from a day’s hunting in the 1930’s. It was not considered the ‘done thing’ at the time for a daughter of the ‘gentry’, to spend her time writing. Having married and had children, Keane stopped writing until well into her 70’s; when in 1981 the novel ‘Good Behaviour’ was published, this time under her own name.
St John’s Hill featuring in a scene in ‘Good Behaviour’ (1982)
‘Good Behaviour’ has been described as a ‘dark comedy of manners, narrated by a totally unreliable narrator, the almost delusional and pitiful Aroon St. Charles’. An initial review at the time stated that:
‘Behind the gates of their decaying Irish country house, Temple Alice, the aristocratic Anglo-Irish St Charles family sinks into a state of decaying grace. To Aroon St Charles, large and unlovely daughter of the house, the fierce forces of money, jealousy and love seem locked out by the ritual patterns of good behaviour. But crumbling codes of conduct cannot hope to save the members of the St Charles family from their own unruly and inadmissible desires.’
The book was nominated for the Booker Prize in 1981, being defeated by Salman Rushdie’s ‘Midnight’s Children’. Due to its prominence, it was almost inevitable that the book would be made into a TV series. This was at a time when a spate of Anglo-Irish ‘Big House’ novels had been filmed, including ‘The Irish R.M.’ and ‘The Real Charlotte’ by Somerville and Ross and ‘Troubles’ by J.G. Farrell. In 1982, the BBC announced its intention of filming ‘Good Behaviour’.
Coolmore House, Carrigaline, then the residence of the Newenham family, became the setting for Temple Alice. Other locations included St. Catherine’s Church in Ringcurran near Kinsale, St. John’s Hill, Kinsale, Rocky Bay and Dunkathel House, Glanmire.
Filming underway on ‘Good Behaviour’ (1982) – photo courtesy of Joe Healy’s Facebook Page ‘Carrigaline Memories’
The drama series was written by Hugh Leonard, who admitted that he had not read the book before being asked to adapt it. He described it as ‘not quite the book for a maiden aunt, but for a literate uncle’. He visited Molly Keane at home at Dysert House, Co. Waterford, while adapting the novel for the screen.
Many local people took part as extras in the filming, particularly members of the South Union hunt. Being an Anglo-Irish drama set at the turn of the Twentieth Century, there were several hunting scenes, with some taking place along the banks of Drakes Pool in Carrigaline. The late Worth Newenham, owner of Coolmore, appears in most of the hunting scenes. Members of the South Union also appeared in a hunt ball scene filmed at Coolmore. Some of the equestrian scenes were filmed at Hitchmough’s Highland Lodge Riding School in Upper Monkstown, while the female extras had to learn to ride side-saddle for the purposes of the TV series. In Kinsale town, the antique shop ‘Janie Mac’s’ was used as the setting of a wine shop.
The actors who took part in the TV series were well known at the time. Nowadays, the best known would probably be Judy Cornwell, who played the governess to the St. Charles children. She is best remembered as ‘Daisy’, the slovenly sister of Hyacinth Bucket (‘It’s Bouquet’), from the TV series ‘Keeping Up Appearances’. She featured prominently in the scenes filmed at Rocky Bay and her character’s funeral took place at Ringcurran Cemetery, Kinsale. The actor Hannah Gordon portrayed the mother of the St. Charles family, while the main character, Aroon St.Charles was played by Joanne McCallum. While filming was ongoing, the actors socialised in the Cork and Kinsale areas and were hosted at the Everyman Palace theatre for a production of J.M. Synge’s ‘The Playboy of the Western World
Funeral scene at Ringcurran Churchyard – with local Shamie Barry approaching the camera
The first of three episodes of ‘Good Behaviour’ was shown on RTE 1 on Thursday 3rd November 1983. The first episode was very well received by the reviewer in the ‘Cork Examiner’, who stated that he was sure that it would win awards. However, Richard Ingram, writing for the British magazine, ‘The Spectator’, a magazine closely aligned with the British Conservative Party, expressed outrage regarding the portrayal of the Anglo Irish in the series:
“Good Behaviour is a delightful novel written with great sensitivity and skill about a young girl, Aroon St Charles, growing up in a dotty Anglo-Irish household, a girl who pines in vain for a young man who once showed some slight signs of being in love with her, a girl who has a terrible vision of herself as ‘the un- married daughter who doesn’t play bridge, letting out the dogs for ever more’. It is a funny book, but like all good humour it is funny because it is true to life. Molly Keane’s characters in common with 90 per cent of the Anglo-Irish are eccentric, bankrupt and over-fond of drink, and for that reason they are real people, accurately and affectionately observed. But the television version presented the book, for reasons which were hard to follow, as a ‘Black Comedy’. Mrs. Keane’s barmy characters were turned into circus grotesques quite out of key with the spirit of comic understatement in Good Behaviour.”
Funeral Scene at Ringcurran Churchyard
The remaining two episodes of the series were shown on the Thursdays of the following weeks.
In May 1984, an auction was held at Coolmore House, where the contents were dispersed. If nothing else, therefore, the series remains one of the last visual records of Coolmore intact. The filming at the house was somewhat of a ‘last hurrah’, when for the last time ‘uniformed servants, grand balls and dining on a grand scale’ were seen within its walls. In an interview before the auction, the late Worth Newenham admitted that the place was almost impossible to keep warm, with 50 tonnes of wood being used in the previous winter in order to take the chill off the air.
In the following year, another of Molly Keane’s novels, ‘Time after Time’, was filmed, with John Gielgud in the title role. However, this was filmed in Leinster.
Filming underway on ‘Good Behaviour’ (1982) – photo courtesy of Joe Healy’s Facebook Page ‘Carrigaline Memories’
Despite the favourable reviews which the series received, it has not been seen on television since it was first shown, nor has it ever been released on video or DVD. Fortunately, however, a few recordings of the series do exist in private hands, kept by those who were able to record it on their home videos when it was first shown. A re-showing of the series would doubtless prove very interesting to the local people who served as extras. Interest in the series was recently regenerated by the Facebook page ‘Carrigaline Memories’, which posted photographs of the filming in progress. These are reproduced here by kind permission of the page’s administrator.
Coolmore House, Carrigaline, which featured in the filming as ‘Temple Alice’