Brian Friel’s plays return to Irish roots in cross-border project

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 – Irish-speaking regions – where the play’s mix of English and Gaeilge will create a truly immersive experience. ““will arrive in an environment, be it a pub, where Gaeilge is being spoken, but the play they will see will be in English, so they will be in the milieu of the two languages,” Doran explained.

Each year, more plays will be added, with the ultimate goal of staging all 29 works by the time of Friel’s centenary in 2029. The performances will follow a purist approach, with readings occurring in the same season or even month that Friel originally set the plays. “In presenting them within the terroir they have come out of, you are strengthening that sense of place in time for the audience,” said Doran.

To further enhance the connection to Friel’s themes, the project will feature a “hedge school” – named after the secret Catholic schools of the 18th and 19th centuries – that will run alongside the plays. Audiences will be bussed into the countryside to a secret location where themes from the plays will be distilled and explored.

With the project’s ambitious scope, Doran sees it as more than just a celebration of Friel’s work. “We evaluate the canon,” he said. “And it’s only through the seeing and the being with and the living with that this can be done. Otherwise the play sits between the covers of a book.”