Please help me identify an old TV Show

al415

I only have very vague memories of this show, but it was on in the late 1970's or even the early 1980's. I can't remember if it was BBC or RTE (I think it was pre-Chanel 4) The basic plot revolved around an Irish "rebel", sort of a Rob Roy story set in Ireland if my memory serves. I want to say the name RYAN appeared in the title somewhere... I can remember the theme song from the opening credits, and one scene where the protagonist is hiding from English soldiers in a forest... Sorry...

Can anyone with a better memory than mine help me out? Thanks in advance.

iMax

Only thing I can think of is Kidnapped which was set in scotland (rob roy type of thing). would have been late 70s

Elmo

al415 wrote: »

I only have very vague memories of this show, but it was on in the late 1970's or even the early 1980's. I can't remember if it was BBC or RTE (I think it was pre-Chanel 4) The basic plot revolved around an Irish "rebel", sort of a Rob Roy story set in Ireland if my memory serves. I want to say the name RYAN appeared in the title somewhere... I can remember the theme song from the opening credits, and one scene where the protagonist is hiding from English soldiers in a forest... Sorry...

Can anyone with a better memory than mine help me out? Thanks in advance.

Robin of Sherwood perhaps??//

Best opening music by Clanada

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8jmZ77-bvw

al415

Nope I remember that one quite clearly, so maybe it was even earlier. Thanks for trying

chughes

RTE ran a series called The Year of the French, based on the book of the same name. Could be this, perhaps ?

Elmo

Two shows where produced in Ireland one about Robinhood and another one that is as described above but it was the early 2000 called Roan or something. Kind of Irish version of Zena

Elmo

al415 wrote: »

Nope I remember that one quite clearly, so maybe it was even earlier. Thanks for trying

Was it children's TV?

Tomohawk

How about "Poldark" or "Dick Turpin" both made in the 1970s, many scenes with english soldiers although set in England.

al415

I remember Dick Turpin, about the highwayman. It was not a kids show, as I remember a scene where he is changing clothes, or crossing a river... and is naked (which probably rules out RTE!)

mike65

This is a long shot but it might be in here

http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/

or here

http://tv.cream.org/

al415

I could'nt find anything on either of those sites, but they might just need more digging. Poldark is the right era and look, but it wasn't Poldark. For years I thought it was called "John Ryan" or "Michael Ryan" but neither shows up on google so I'm probably a bit off...

al415

On a related note. While searching I found this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ON7zPFVZZk&feature=related

That sure brings me back! I think my show was on around the same time

Hagar

Probably miles off here, again.

I remember a show vaguely like that but it wasn't set in Ireland, it was set in France. it was call Thierry la Fronde. A sort of French Robin Hood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARUnuQhG_p0

It could also have been Ivanhoe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEvz-4dbQjE

ynotdu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akIVjTFd-Zg&feature=PlayList&p=CEEB8C6F2DE2DA39&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=22Hi Al415 might it be this(theme music too haunting to forget. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFMvp91oSak&feature=PlayList&p=CEEB8C6F2DE2DA39&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=11

two seperate clips but only about four minuates long,take a look and please let me know if it was what you were thinking of,as it is wrecking my head now also :-)

al415

So far none of these are ringing bells. That Against the Wind show, I've never seen before. The show I'm thinking of was a bit like Kidnapped. The mental images I have are of the main character being pursued cross country. Perhaps he was always on the run. I picture green fields, and wooded landscapes. Redcoats etc. Set in the 1700's. The main character's last name was Ryan.

On another note, my searching has uncovered all sorts of shows I had forgotten about, Onedin Line for example!

greendom

Was it Flashing Blade.

This was another French tv show at that time which was dubbed. I think it was about the Franco Spanish war.

I can remember the theme tune for some reason

You've got to fight for what you want for all that you believe

al415

greendom wrote: »

Was it Flashing Blade.

This was another French tv show at that time which was dubbed. I think it was about the Franco Spanish war.

I can remember the theme tune for some reason

You've got to fight for what you want for all that you believe

Holy crap! No that wasn't it, but I was trying to remember that show a while back also! I could picture the opening credits in my head! Thanks!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-ZEDNkZ2L4

Hagar

Was it a one-off, a mini-series or a full series, b&w or colour?

al415

Hagar wrote: »

Was it a one-off, a mini-series or a full series, b&w or colour?

I'm sorry... It was colour. I remember it as a series, though I don't have memories of many episodes, so perhaps it was only a mini... Lots of green. I'm certain it was set in Ireland because so few shows were back then.

darkdubh

There was a show in the late 70s about Irish rebels who were sent to australia as convicts.They end up breaking out and rebelling.Cant think of the name of it,was repeated on rte in the mid 90s.

Green Hornet

ynotdu wrote: »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akIVjTFd-Zg&feature=PlayList&p=CEEB8C6F2DE2DA39&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=22Hi Al415 might it be this(theme music too haunting to forget. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFMvp91oSak&feature=PlayList&p=CEEB8C6F2DE2DA39&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=11

I was just going to suggest it myself. Exactly like you, I still remember the music and the series from when I was a kid. As I remember it, it was a fantastic series and seems to have been forgotten.

There were some very sad scenes in it.

Thanks for the clips. Great to hear the theme again!

ynotdu

just noticed you live in the usa,was going to suggest you take a visit to the National mueseam and research the newspapers of the time.

when was RTE,s first color broadcast?at least if you know that you know a starting date to search,not as difficult a job as it sounds as tv section of old newspapers in Ireland only four including the three english ones.the broadcasting hours of the channels much less and the genre narrows the search again.

Does anybody here in Ireland still love you enough to do it for you?:)

must be some site somewhere on the net to find this!

al415

I discounted Against the Wind because of the scenes I saw on Youtube were about domestic life in Australia. If there are later scenes, with the characters back in Ireland, I'd love to see them.

I'm pretty sure the show was on the BBC because there was male nudity (a bum) and I doubt that would have passed muster for RTE in the 70's!

Green Hornet

al415 wrote: »

I discounted Against the Wind because of the scenes I saw on Youtube were about domestic life in Australia. If there are later scenes, with the characters back in Ireland, I'd love to see them.

I'm pretty sure the show was on the BBC because there was male nudity (a bum) and I doubt that would have passed muster for RTE in the 70's!

If I remember correctly the early scenes were set in Ireland, much of the middle section in Australia but the end was also set in Ireland.

ilkhanid

On the theme of a TV show one can't out a title on;does this ring a bell with anybody? It was a 90s show about some guy who had stumbled on some huge conspiracy involving important people. He's permanently on the run from them, but his mind is addled from drugs they fed him and things they did to him when he was in captivity at one stage, so he's never completely sure what is real and what is in his mind. It was real paranoid stuff, everybody he met seemed to be working for or in league with "them", so he couldn't trust anybody, even people he thought were his friends. About the only plot point I remember involved a memory he had of a group of American military and other guys hanging four hooded men in a forest clearing. He thought this had happened in Vietnam where he had served, but he finds a spot in a wood in Virginia that matches the appearance of the place in his memory...which he can't trust. Thats all, I'm afraid.

ynotdu

al415 wrote: »

I discounted Against the Wind because of the scenes I saw on Youtube were about domestic life in Australia. If there are later scenes, with the characters back in Ireland, I'd love to see them.

I'm pretty sure the show was on the BBC because there was male nudity (a bum) and I doubt that would have passed muster for RTE in the 70's!

Did you actually watch the youtube videos?especially the 2nd link,

look at the thatched cottage she was living in.

the bit were it is said "you are going back to Ireland"

and the look of shock/surprise on her face when he walked in the door of the thatched cottage in Ireland

also the Ireland 1796 banner splashed across the screen.

al415

ynotdu wrote: »

Did you actually watch the youtube videos?especially the 2nd link,

look at the thatched cottage she was living in.

the bit were it is said "you are going back to Ireland"

and the look of shock/surprise on her face when he walked in the door of the thatched cottage in Ireland

also the Ireland 1796 banner splashed across the screen.

I sure did... But none of it set alarm bells off in my memory. The scenes of cottages that I saw on Youtube looked distinctly Southern Hemisphere, bleached crab-grass and clear blue skys. The memories of the show I am trying to remember looked like they were filmed on-location in Ireland. Also, I seem to remember the protaganist being on the run, alone for much of the show... like Rob Roy or Kidnapped type of story. Thanks.

Blue850

Smuggler from 1981?

al415

I don't think I ever saw Smuggler... Looks like something I'd have run home from school for though. I came across a pretty good website that has alphebtical lists of all sorts of BBC shows from the 1940's to the present day. It takes a long time to get through it but one possible match is this;

SCARF JACK 1981

Period drama serial. In 1798 rural Ireland, a mysterious stranger helps a village defend itself from English soldiers.

George White

Manions of America? Pierce Brosnan, as Rory, a Famine-era labourer who leaves Wicklow and goes off to Philadelphia (still Wicklow though)