not with the original actors but with actors who sounded like the person who played them in the television series, Jonathan Ryan as Benjy and Mick Lally as Eamon. The Riordans was later dropped from the radio schedules as part of a re-organisation of the schedules. The series was replaced by a spin-off series Bracken, which saw Gabriel Byrne's character move from Kilkenny to Wicklow. Bracken became the second in a trilogy of agricultural soaps/dramas produced by RTÉ, the final such soap being Glenroe. While occasional media reports have wondered whether the show should return, notably when the independent TV3 was launched and was seeking to capture the audience, something it might have done had it had The Riordans in its schedule, there is in reality little chance of its return, given the death of some of its leading actors, including John Cowley (Tom Riordan), Chris O'Neill (Michael Riordan), Moira Deady, (Mary Riordan), Annie D'Alton (Minnie Brennan), Tony Doyle (Fr. Sheehy), Joe Pilkington (Eamon Maher), Christopher Casson (The Rector), Jack O'Reilly (Johnny Mac), Biddy White Lennon (Maggie Riordan) and Tom Hickey, as well as the unavailability of Gabriel Byrne, now a Hollywood actor. Legacy The final 26 episodes of The Riordans( which were cut in 2 which resulted in 52 30mins episodes) was shown From October 1980 on the various ITV regions - for the most part, in most areas, it was shown three times a week, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 12:30 - most regions temporarily dropped Australian wartime drama The Sullivans, which had been aired in that timeslot in most regions, to accommodate The Riordans. In London region, the series was only screen weekly on Monday finishing on 12 October 1981. In the Tyne Tees region, The Sullivans continued to air on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 12:30, but The Riordans aired on Wednesdays only - they gradually fell behind the network as a result. It was dropped from that timeslot after a while - only to continue in the 3:45 slot on Tuesday afternoons (a brief narrated refresher course was provided) and carried on in that slot until the final episode.The Riordans was a key development in late 20th century television drama, because, as well as giving RTÉ its first experience of how to create a long-running soap opera, its use of OBUs changed the methodology by which later soaps in both Britain and Ireland were made.