Captains and the Kings is an eight-part television miniseries broadcast on NBC in 1976 as part of its Best Sellersanthology series.[1] It is an adaptation of the 1972 novel Captains and the Kings by Taylor Caldwell. Like the novel, the miniseries is about an Irish American family, headed by ambitious Irish immigrant Joseph Armagh (played by Richard Jordan), which accumulates economic and political power during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Plot
The story begins when Joseph Armagh, a poor Irish immigrant, arrives in New York in 1857, and ends when his last son dies in 1912. Armagh gains wealth and power after investing in the early oil industry. He becomes obsessed with having one of his sons get elected as the first Irish Catholic U.S. president, but that desire is unfulfilled, for his politician son, Rory, is assassinated.[2]