Brian Friel (1929-2015)

Brian Friel was the finest dramatist of his generation. His work covered a wide variety of themes: exile and emigration, the political Troubles of Northern Ireland, the subjective nature of memory. But Friel’s diverse output, spanning a fifty-year period was bound together by his passion for language, his belief in the ritualistic nature of theatre and his breadth of understanding.

— Michael Billington, The Guardian

Brian Friel was born in Omagh, County Tyrone, in 1929, and died in County Donegal in 2015. His plays include Philadelphia, Here I Come!, Translations and Dancing at Lughnasa (1990) which won the 1992 Tony Award for Best Play in New York; it was adapted for screen and filmed on location in Ireland in 1997. In addition to awards for his plays, Brian Friel received a lifetime achievement award from the Irish Times in 1999. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Royal Society of Literature and the Irish Academy of Letters. He was elected a Saoi of Aosdána in 2006.

The Gallery Press has published Aristocrats, The Communication Cord, Crystal and Fox, The Enemy Within, Faith Healer, The Freedom of the City, The Gentle Island, Give Me Your Answer, Do!, Hedda Gabler (after Ibsen), The Home Place, Living Quarters, The London Vertigo (after Macklin), Lovers (Winners and Losers), The Loves of Cass McGuire, Molly Sweeney, Three Plays After, Volunteers, Wonderful Tennessee and Performances. Selected Stories and the following plays ‘after Chekhov’: Three Sisters, Uncle Vanya, The Yalta Game. A Month in the Country and Fathers and Sons (2013), both after Turgenev, are also available. His Collected Plays (in five volumes) were published in 2016. The Mundy Scheme, a long surpressed drama was published in 2022. Rehearsal Diary (Faith Healer, 1979), Brian Friel’s riveting account of the ill-fated attempt to bring the text of Faith Healer from the page to the Broadway stage for its world première was published in 2022.