Enjoying going to rack and ruin

The TG4 series Ros na Rún is now seen by 200 schools as part of their Transition Year programme. The soap opera's terrible twins, Róise and Ríona, talk to Louise Holden

With 280,000 fans, the days of a quiet pint are over for Ros na Rún's troubled twins Róise and Ríona de Búrca. "Killing my Uncle Gerry was a great moment. It was kind of twisted. I really enjoyed doing that," says Linda Bhreathnach, who has enjoyed a scandalous existence since taking up the role of Róise. She's the youngest member of the cast at 19, but she's already been pregnant, cheated on her twin sister and done away with her uncle.

Her on-screen sister, Ríona (Sorcha Ní Chéide), got a similar thrill from pushing her adulterous twin down the stairs with tragic consequences. In life the two women are great mates but sometimes Bhreathnach really hates her screen sister.

"I don't have a sister of my own but I get the chance to sample the complexities of the sisterly relationship. Róise and Ríona are always at each other's throats," she says.

Linda came to Ros na Rún straight from school. She's become a bit of a local celebrity since - the soap has 280,000 viewers a week. She can't have a drink in Rosmuck without being quizzed about upcoming storylines and slagged for her bad girl behaviour. The fact that she and Sorcha Ní Chéide are inseparable doesn't help.

"We go out socialising together all the time. Any chance of slipping by unnoticed is gone as soon as Sorcha shows up," Linda says.

Sorcha agrees that they are close but admits to a blurring of the lines when Róise slept with her on-screen boyfriend and got pregnant. Róise went on to pretend that the baby was someone else's.

"It was such a wicked thing to do I did actually feel angry and betrayed for Ríona - this job can leave you pretty strung out," Sorcha says.

Working nine hours a day or more on set has been a different experience from that of Linda's schoolfriends, who have travelled, been to college and taken things easy since the Leaving Cert. She enjoys the show but she can't quite see herself doing a Ken Barlow and sticking with the role for 30 years. Mind you, when I mention Ken Barlow she draws a blank.

"I rarely watch TV and I never watch soaps. It's too much like work," she says. Linda had some hard months of tears and trauma on the soap last year and has enjoyed a period of relative calm for her character so far in 2003. Life in the soaps is notoriously stressful, so Linda is relieved to get a break from the regular emotional breakdowns. She won't be turning up in the tabloids à la Daniella Westbrook, although she and Sorcha are well able to party.

Linda keeps stress at bay by not taking her role too seriously.

"I know Róise better than anyone else in the world," she says. "But sometimes I think she's such an idiot. I would never say some of the things that she says."

She doesn't go in for method acting either, taking each storyline as it comes. However, she did pick her mother's brain when she had to play a pregnant women and found herself shooting rude stares at pregnant passers-by so that she could get the "waddle" down.

When it came to preparing for the moment when she pushed her drug-abusing, violent uncle over a bridge, she didn't scavenge for real-world examples.

"I've seen plenty of people getting murdered in film and on TV. I know what it looks like," she says. It's handy, isn't it, that we all know how to behave in a murder situation from watching the telly?

Grisly accidents, substance abuse and sexual violence mean that Ros na Rún is doing its bit to bring extreme living to couch potatoes. But despite the body count, it's not tragedy the way Peig Sayers experienced it. Characters such as the cantankerous Seamus bring plenty of laughs to the show and Róise and Ríona are well able to turn up the temperature.

The mix of living Irish and thrill-ride plotlines is a winner for the fastest-growing segment of the drama's audience. The show is now watched by Transition Year students in 200 schools. For the past year the team has been sending advance information to Irish teachers so that the nightly assaults, explosions, steamy windows and betrayals can be picked apart in classrooms by day.

The show's producer, Trevor Ó Clochartaigh, knew that Irish 16- to 17-year-olds would get a kick from the cast of his troubled town.

"The power of the zapper goes to the youngest person in the household, and they're all getting drawn into Ros na Rún and taking their parents with them," he says.

The show's viewership has risen by over 40,000 since creating the link with Transition Year. A busy website has brought the Ros na Rún experience closer to its thousands of fans, so Róise and Ríona shouldn't expect a quiet life down the pub any time soon.