"Translations"

First performed in 1980 in the Guildhall Theatre in Derry, Brian Friel's Translations was one of the flagships of the Field Day Group. This was a gathering of writers and artists including actor Stephen Rea, poets Seamus Heaney and Tom Paulin, academic Seamus Deane, and playwright Friel. Their project was to reinvigorate the political consciousness of Irish literary arts with a respect for traditions of nation, self, and language which extended past the republican rhetoric of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

It is still a powerful work of theatre. Translations is a gripping and challenging drama which both uses and explores the richness of language and history to achieve its ends. Set in Donegal in 1833, the play tells the story of a small community on the brink of irrevocable change. Most of the action takes place in the home of learned but doddery Hedge School master Hugh O'Donnell.