End of an era for a Ros na Rún original

After over two decades, Peadar Ó Conghaile will shut up shop in his beloved Ros na Rún for the last time on tonight’s episode.

The shop keeper and B&B owner played by Joe Steve Ó Neachtain is one of the last seven surviving members of the original cast.

The 73-year-old decided to retire from the Irish language soap after his great friend, Diarmuid Mac An Adhastair, who played lovable rogue Seamus, died aged 71 in July 2015, a month before he was to start filming the twentieth season of the show.

“Diarmuid rang me to say bye bye. He knew he was going to die and I didn’t believe him. It really hurt me. It made me realise we don’t know what’s ahead. We’re lucky to have come this far. I want to use the time I’ve left to write.”

Another key reason he decided to leave the soap was that he and wife Máirín – a retired secondary school teacher – were unable to visit their Spanish holiday home in the winter when the weather most helped her arthritis due to the filming schedule. It was also a real bolthole for his writing.

“You’d be working six days a week and have to be on standby. I’m healthy enough for my age but you would be out filming in the middle of January and it wouldn’t be shown until May so you’d be out in short sleeves,” he explains.

“When I went to them to say I wanted to leave they tried to convince me to stay. There’s been an awful lot of horrible deaths on Ros na Rún. I said I’d stay another year if I could have the whole of October free. They came back and said we’ll make sure we give you a decent death.”

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.