The action takes place in late August 1833 at a hedge-school in the townland of Baile Beag, an Irish-speaking community in County Donegal. In a nearby field camps a recently arrived detachment of the Royal Engineers, making the first Ordnance Survey. For the purposes of cartography, the local Gaelic place names have to be recorded and rendered into English. In examining the effects of this operation on the lives of a small group, Brian Friel skillfully reveals the far-reaching personal and cultural effects of an action which is at first sight purely administrative.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Provocative dramatic essay
I'll admit I had expected this play to be another political statement about disappearing languages and the hegemonic powers that threaten them--either that or a celebration of Irish Gaelic (I'm more with Joyce than Yeats when it comes to provincial sentimentality about a nation's older tongue). But Friel manages to make the reader/spectator ponder the seriousness of what can be lost in the translation of the marginal language into the majority discourse. In some instances, the signifer and signified, ... Read More
Rating: - Phlisophy hits home
I enjoyed reading other reviews, but i was constantly getting the feeling that there was a real ingorance to the underlining theme of the play. On the surface it is about human emotions and the trials a change in culture can have on a society. Friel also challenges the sugnificance of language itself and forces us to seek the relevance of the communication we use. It is thought provoking causing us to realise that everything is subject to human perception, making us questionwhether any liguistic source ... Read More
Rating: - the loss of languages
an eloquent, moving play about the love of one's native language (Irish) and the plight of lost languages (Latin, ancient Greek, and so on). Of course, it was written after the largely successful revival of the Irish language. There's your delayed "happy ending." (It's not the same, though, not by a long shot.)
the nice thing about friel's play is that he conveys the machine of colonialism with the appropriate complexity--it isn't "bad Englishman, good Irishman," but something much more ... Read More
Rating: - A sublime play...
Friel does a wonderful job of using the beginnings of the Irish Potato Famine and the callous attitude of the English government as a backdrop for the far more interesting issue of language and history- more specifically, how the words we use can only imperfectly capture the feelings and connections we feel about the object itself; and how the stories we tell about history can be more important than what actually happened. What is most poignant and touching to me is Read More
Rating: - Language and identity
This is without doubt my favourite play by Friel and one of my favourite plays of all time. However, what I find really frustrating about it is the fact that is nearly always interpreted as being simply about the death of the Irish language and the colonial relationship between the English and the Irish. In other words, it is constantly being interpreted as "uniquely Irish" and I feel this does the play a serious injustice by failing to underline its international appeal. I personally have always read the ... Read More
- the loss of languages
