Brian Friel

Brian Friel was one of the most acclaimed and influential Irish dramatists of the 20th century. He was born in 1929 near Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, and grew up in a bilingual environment, speaking both English and Irish. He studied at St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, and St. Mary's Training College, Belfast, and worked as a teacher for 10 years before becoming a full-time writer. He published his first short stories in The New Yorker magazine, and his first play, A Sort of Freedom, was broadcast on BBC radio in 1958. He gained international recognition with his breakthrough play, Philadelphia, Here I Come!, which premiered at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 1964 and was later staged in New York and London. The play explored the theme of emigration and identity, which would recur in many of his works. Friel wrote more than 30 plays, including The Loves of Cass McGuire (1966), Lovers (1967), Crystal and Fox (1968), The Mundy Scheme (1969), The Freedom of the City (1973), Volunteers (1975), Living Quarters (1977), Faith Healer (1979), Aristocrats (1979), Translations (1980), Making History (1988), Dancing at Lughnasa (1990), Molly Sweeney (1994), Give Me Your Answer, Do! (1997), The Home Place (2005) and The Yalta Game (2001). His plays were often set in the fictional town of Ballybeg, and dealt with themes such as family, language, culture, history, memory, and myth. He also adapted or translated works by other writers, such as Anton Chekhov, Ivan Turgenev, August Strindberg, and Henrik Ibsen. Friel co-founded the Field Day Theatre Company in 1980 with actor Stephen Rea, and was involved in several productions that addressed the political and social issues of Northern Ireland. He was widely regarded as the heir of Samuel Beckett and the Irish Chekhov, and received numerous awards and honours for his contributions to literature and theatre, such as the Tony Award, the Olivier Award, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, the Irish PEN Award, and the Saoi of Aosdána. He was also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the British Royal Society of Literature, and the Irish Academy of Letters. He was appointed to the Irish Senate in 1987 and served until 1989. He died in 2015 at the age of 86, after suffering a stroke. He was survived by his wife Anne and his five children. He was buried in Glenties, County Donegal, Ireland, where he had lived for many years.