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Brian Friel’s plays to return to Irish roots in ambitious cross-border project
To mark the centenary of Brian Friel’s birth in 2029, a five-year project will bring his works to the communities, landscapes and even seasons that inspired them.
Plays by the legendary Irish playwright Brian Friel, often hailed as an ‘Irish Chekhov,’ are heading back to their roots in a landmark cross-border project, The Guardian writes.
The five-year celebration, FrielDays – a Homecoming, will bring all 29 of his plays to life across the very landscapes and communities that shaped them, including County Donegal, County Derry, and County Tyrone: regions where Friel spent much of his life. The project is set to culminate in 2029, marking the centenary of Friel’s birth.
Friel, who died in 2015, was near-unique in the Irish literary world for having lived and written both in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, grounding his plays in the distinct cultures and histories of both.
Now, under the direction of Seán Doran and Arts Over Borders, the project will feature site-specific readings and performances in community halls, churches, and even schools – all in the locations where the stories were set. “It’s using landscape in a sort of psycho-geography that helps trigger the plays in a more heightened way,” said Doran. The plays will be staged in towns and villages across the counties, each chosen for its historical and emotional connection to the work.
In 2025, the project will kick off with performances of ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’, ‘Translations’, ‘Faith Healer’, ‘The Home Place’, and the lesser-known ‘Volunteers’, a play Friel “particularly loved” despite its cold reception in London and Dublin. “Irishness is the overarching theme,” Doran explained, “and re-evaluating the past into the present, that haunts all of us, through playwriting.” One of the most powerful examples will be ‘Volunteers’, which features an archaeological dig that mirrors real-life excavations at Wood Quay, Dublin. The play will be staged at Ebrington Square in Derry, the site of a former British army barracks, reimagined as a live archaeological dig.
In a nod to Friel’s portrayal of Ireland’s rural communities, ‘Faith Healer’ will take audiences on a journey through the Irish countryside. The play’s four acts will be staged in different locations, with the audience bussed from town to town, crossing borders along the way. Doran sees this as a way to “see the border not as a divider but as a binder,” underscoring Friel’s exploration of identity, place, and migration. Similarly, ‘Translations’ will be performed in Gaeltacht areas –
