Eureka Street is a BBC Northern Ireland

BBC Northern Ireland

BBC Northern Ireland is the main public service broadcaster in Northern Ireland.The organisation is one of the three national regions of the BBC, together with BBC Scotland and BBC Wales. Based at Broadcasting House, Belfast, it provides television, radio, online and interactive television content...

 1999 adaptation to mini-series

Miniseries

A miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...

 of Robert McLiam Wilson

Robert McLiam Wilson

Robert McLiam Wilson is a Northern Irish novelist. He attended St Malachy's College and studied at University of Cambridge; however, he dropped out and, for a short time, was homeless. This period of his life profoundly affected his later life and influenced his works...

's 1996 novel of the same name.

Set in Belfast

Belfast

Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...

 in the six months before and after the 1994 ceasefire

Northern Ireland peace process

The peace process, when discussing the history of Northern Ireland, is often considered to cover the events leading up to the 1994 Provisional Irish Republican Army ceasefire, the end of most of the violence of the Troubles, the Belfast Agreement, and subsequent political developments.-Towards a...

, it commences with an anonymous hand typing the words, "All stories are love stories." The novel opens with the same text.

The story follows the lives of two friends: the Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

 Jake Jackson - struggling with a failed relationship, his job as a repossession

Repossession

Repossession is generally used to refer to a financial institution taking back an object that was either used as collateral or rented or leased in a transaction. Repossession is a "self-help" type of action in which the party having right of ownership of the property in question takes the property...

 agent and the effect of the Troubles

The Troubles

The Troubles was a period of ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland which spilled over at various times into England, the Republic of Ireland, and mainland Europe. The duration of the Troubles is conventionally dated from the late 1960s and considered by many to have ended with the Belfast...

 on the world around him - and the Protestant Chuckie Lurgan, "fat" and unemployed until circumstances and a previously untapped entrepreneurial

Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

 spirit lead him to a world very different from Eureka Street.

The adaptation was scripted by Donna Franceschild

Donna Franceschild

Donna Franceschild is a British-based television writer and dramatist, originally from the US. She has written many plays and television shows, but her best known work is probably the BBC series Takin' Over the Asylum.-Career:...

, directed by Adrian Shergold and starred Vincent Regan

Vincent Regan

-Career:Regan was born in Swansea on 16 May 1965, the son of Irish immigrants. As a youth he moved to Ireland with his parents, but returned to Britain and attended St Joseph's College, Ipswich in Suffolk....

 as Jake and Mark Benton

Mark Benton

Mark Benton is an English actor, perhaps most famous for his roles as Eddie in Early Doors and Howard in Northern Lights.-Life and career:Benton was born in Guisborough, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, England....

as Chuckie.