BBC series’ adventures wholly captivating

I have moved, lock, stock and barrel. No forwarding address.

At least in my mind.

I have taken up residence in the charming hamlet of Ballykissangel, somewhere in Northern Ireland. (Where else?) Many of you may have seen the BBC production, which started in 1997 and ran for three years on PBS. Naturally, I missed it.

But thanks to the magic of Netflix, I got the whole show in four or five discs and watched the production virtually from beginning to end. When I did the same thing watching “The Sopranos” last year, I started talking in a New Jersey dialect and looked for good places to dump corpses. Now I talk in the lilting Irish accent and wait for the “local” to open every afternoon.

Since I lack the nerve to fly back to Ireland, I make imaginary visits through the “Bally K” series. The town is actually Avoca in County Wicklow, which has since become a tourist mecca.

The story centers on the assignment of an English – ptui! – Catholic priest named Peter Clifford – What a name! – to the tiny hamlet of Ballykissangel. As in most Irish towns, the action occurs in the church and the “local” called Fitzgerald’s.

Catholic boys have always been suckers for priest stories, dating back to “The Bells of St. Mary’s” and anything with Spencer Tracy in a collar. Since we were told that becoming a priest would mean an automatic entrance into heaven for our mothers, every Irish Catholic boy thought of it, at least for a minute. I lasted all the way until they gave me the Latin to memorize for the Mass. No thanks.

Executive producer Jeremy Gwilt said “Ballykissangel” examines religious issues and temptation, but they are “addressed with irony and resolved with wit.” Indeed.

A city boy, Father Peter’s first comment about his new, very rural town is “Where am I, the Twilight Zone?”

Father Peter (Stephen Tompkinson) joins the others on the Fitzgerald’s barstools and quickly falls head over heels for the sarcastic, sardonic, agnostic publican, Assumpta (Dervia Kirwan).

If you know anything about the Catholic Church and the Irish nature, you know no good will come of this. Naturally, they never kiss or even enjoy a decent embrace, but the show created a furor when it was aired for the “provocative” plot.

The star-crossed lovers are closely watched by what passes as a villain in the show, Father MacNally.

The plots are surprisingly good and gather up the town residents for various adventures, which include a huge lottery win by a Dublin tourist, it turns out, a mammoth investment by Koreans to create hundreds of jobs, and an inappropriate paint ball retreat scheme by the town frenetic businessman, Brian Quigley, who manages to lose money hand over fist. At one point, Quigley (Tony Doyle) even evicts Father Clifford.

There is Niamh, the pacifistic policeman, Brendan the intellectual schoolteacher, Eamonn the innocent, elderly shepherd, and a cast of interesting residents. Whatever problem develops during the day is solved in time for a pint at Fitzgerald’s.

The local reminds me of Mill’s Inn in Ballyvourney where the Twomeys (mother’s family) have been drinking for several hundred years.

The “Bally K” developments and predicaments are far more interesting than those of my lackluster friends. We have been together for so long that we have a finger code now for our oft-repeated stories. When anyone starts a story we have heard before, we figure out how many times we have heard it, and signal the number with the appropriate finger, in order to stop it immediately.

That’s why I have moved to Ballykissangel.

At least in my mind.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.