Friel, Brian (1929– )

Northern Irish dramatist and short-story writer. Friel's work often addresses social and historical pressures that contribute to the Irish political situation. He distinguishes himself as a playwright by his experiments with dramatic forms and by his precise, often poetically charged language. His work dramatizes the interactions and tensions between history and myth, and change and tradition, and explores the effects of these processes on individuals, the family, and the wider community, especially concentrating on rural society.

Born in Omagh, County Tyrone, and educated in Northern Ireland, Friel has lived in the Republic since 1967. His first success was with Philadelphia, Here I Come! (1964), which examines the issue of emigration in the 1960s. Later plays include the critically acclaimed Dancing at Lughnasa (1990; filmed 1998).

In 1980 Friel co-founded the Field Day Theatre Company, which produced the ground-breaking Translations (1980), a study of British linguistic and cultural colonialism in 19th-century Ireland. Other plays include The Freedom of the City (1973), Faith Healer (1979), Making History (1988), Molly Sweeney (1994), and The Home Place (2004).