Irish Examiner view: Tom Hickey's proud legacy on stage and screen

Tom Hickey, 1944 — 2021

 Members of 'The Riordans' re-united (L to R)Moira Deady (Mary Riordan), Tom Hickey (Benjy) & Biddy White Lennon (Maggie) before watching a screening of the upcoming RTÉ documentary 'The Riordans: Tea, Taboos & Tractors' at Brooks Hotel,Dublin back in 2009. Picture: Gareth Chaney Collins

Tom Hickey, who has died aged 77, had a long and distinguished career as an actor. His legacy is in so many ways the story of this society's growth, this society's evolution to what it is today. His stage work focused on modern Irish playwrights such as Tom Murphy, Frank McGuinness, Bernard Farrell, and Marina Carr. His film career included roles in My Left Foot, Fools of Fortune, Inside I'm Dancing, Stella Days, and Breakfast on Pluto.

Though his stage and film work were significant his part in that seminal television series — The Riordans — may frame his memory, especially for those who got to know him in an Ireland far less connected than it is today.

He joined the cast in 1965 and for 16 years played Benjy Riordan, a wide-eyed, gullible young Irishman determined to enjoy modernity even if he had but a partial understanding of what that might mean. He and his colleagues did that so successfully that they left a social document that offers an invaluable yardstick measuring how this society has changed in the intervening half-century.