The BBC has unveiled the first images from Death and Nightingales, a dark new period drama bringing Jamie Dornan and Matthew Rhys together on screen alongside rising Irish actress Ann Skelly.

The three-part BBC Two series is adapted from Eugene McCabe’s 1992 Irish novel of the same name and was written and directed by Allan Cubitt, the creator of The Fall. The project also reunites Cubitt with Dornan, who starred in the acclaimed crime drama.

Set in rural Fermanagh in 1885, Death and Nightingales unfolds against a landscape marked by religious division, political tension and long-held resentment. The story takes place over a single, intensely pressured 24-hour period, with one woman determined to break free from a life shaped by family conflict and betrayal.

A dangerous escape

Ann Skelly plays Beth Winters, who is celebrating her 23rd birthday when she makes a life-changing decision.

Beth has spent years living under the authority of her Protestant landowner stepfather, Billy Winters, played by Matthew Rhys. Her relationship with Billy is deeply complicated, shaped by years of pain and betrayal.

On the day of her birthday, Beth decides to leave that life behind. Her escape plan involves Liam Ward, a charming Catholic played by Jamie Dornan, with whom she hopes to begin a new life away from Fermanagh.

But Liam is not simply a romantic escape route. As the story develops, the relationships between Beth, Liam and Billy become increasingly tangled in the political and religious tensions surrounding them.

Love, betrayal and revenge in 1885 Ireland

The drama explores a world in which neighbors watch one another, information is passed along and loyalties can shift without warning. Spies, confessions and deception form part of the atmosphere, while the divisions between communities place enormous pressure on the characters.

At its heart, however, the story remains focused on Beth and her struggle to take control of her own future.

Her decision to leave sets in motion a chain of events in which love, betrayal, deception and revenge collide. What begins as an attempt to escape a difficult home life gradually becomes something much larger, exposing tensions that extend beyond one family and into the wider divisions of Irish society.

Jamie Dornan reunites with Allan Cubitt

For Dornan, the series marked another collaboration with Cubitt following The Fall. This time, however, the actor moves away from the contemporary crime world of that series to play Liam Ward, a Catholic tenant and laborer whose connection with Beth becomes central to the drama.

Matthew Rhys takes on the role of Billy Winters, Beth’s Protestant stepfather and a powerful landowner. Ann Skelly, meanwhile, leads the story as Beth, carrying the emotional weight of a character caught between family history, forbidden affection and her desire for freedom.

The production also featured an Irish cast and was filmed across Northern Ireland, taking advantage of the region’s historic properties and atmospheric countryside. Springhill, a 17th-century plantation house in Moneymore, County Derry, was among the locations used for the series.

A story built around one crucial day

The decision to confine the central action to roughly 24 hours gives Death and Nightingales an unusually concentrated structure.

Beth’s 23rd birthday becomes the point at which decades of personal pain and wider social tensions begin moving toward a decisive confrontation. The story combines the intimate struggle of a young woman seeking independence with the larger religious, political and class divisions of 19th-century Ireland.

Allan Cubitt adapted the novel specifically for television while retaining its tightly compressed timeframe. Producer Jonathan Cavendish, working through Imaginarium Productions, was joined by James Mitchell for Soho Moon Pictures, with the drama produced as a BBC Two and RTÉ co-production.

The production was filmed in Northern Ireland in 2018, with the BBC announcing that the three-part drama would arrive on BBC Two later that year.

With its combination of sweeping period settings, family conflict and an increasingly dangerous escape plan, Death and Nightingales promised a markedly different role for Dornan while giving Skelly a major leading part opposite two established stars.

As Beth attempts to determine her own destiny, the secrets and betrayals surrounding her threaten to pull everyone around her into a confrontation far beyond the boundaries of one troubled household.