Paulie – Damien Molony
Michael’s Widow – Fionnula Flanagan
Hartigan – Peter Gowen
Miss Hartigan – Deirdre Donnelly
Patsy – Susan Loughnane
Frances – Ruth Bradley
Annie – Aoibhinn McGinnity
Aidan – Padraic Delaney
Caslin – Ian McEllhinney
Director – Gemma McMullan
Producer – Gemma McMullan
Writer – William Trevor

Damien Molony and Fionnula Flanagan during ‘The Hill Bachelors’ recording. (c) photo credit BBC Northern Ireland Radio Drama (please do not copy)

The Hill Bachelors Official Synopsis

Paulie has returned home for the funeral of his father. A man he barely knew. The remote farm is on a boreen, high up in the hills, a place he hasn’t been back to in many years. As his brothers and sisters arrive home for the funeral, the question on everyone’s mind is – ‘What will happen to Ma?’ She cannot manage by herself and Paulie knows what they are inadvertently saying – he is the only one who is unmarried, doesn’t have children – it is up to him to move back and help his mother.

Caught between desire and circumstance, Paulie, must choose between marrying his long-time love, Patsy Finnucane, or caring for his widowed mother and resigning himself to the isolated life of a hill bachelor.

‘There is no better short story writer in the English-speaking world’ The Wall Street Journal

William Trevor has long been hailed as the master in short story telling. He has published nearly 40 novels, short story collections, plays, and collections of non-fiction. He has won three Whitbread Awards, a PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award, and been nominated five times for the Booker Prize, most recently for his novel Love and Summer (2009). In 1977 Trevor was awarded an honorary CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) for his services to literature.