BRIAN FRIEL – TRANSLATIONS
The historical context of the play (the Penal Laws and the surveys especially) is
important. The play is about the visit of EN officers in charge of doing the ordnance
survey: it’s the drawing of a map. It’s based on real historical events. It was
decided to send an army: The Sappers. This special regiment was called the Royal
Engineers. They were under the supervision of Colonel Thomas Colby. They had a
lot of material, very modern equipment for the time.
Brian Friel was a Catholic from the North. Home Rule was opposed by the Unionists
(the Protestants). They wanted at all cost to remain in the UK. It ended with the
Anglo-IR Treaty in 1921. That treaty created not yet the Republic of IRL (1947)
but the Free State of IRL. It also created the province of Northern Ireland. It
remained part of the UK, which became the United Kingdom of GB and Northern IRL.
For decades, they established a series of discriminations against the Catholics in
NIRL: in jobs mostly. The vote was organized so that the constituencies were
divided again according to the number of Unionists inside, so that Protestants
will be better represented. It is called gerrymandering.
the NIRL Civil Rights Association (NICRA) on the modal of the Civil Right
Movement in the US. In Derry, they organized a huge demonstration in 1909. It
was very violently repressed by the police. Why? Because the police were exclusively
composed of P. It was called The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). At the time,
there were journalists: they filmed the events, and this was released on TV. This
triggered riots all over the province.
P and C started to live in separate neighborhoods. The local government was
unable to cope, so London decided to introduce direct provision: a direct
government from the GB. And they sent the BR army. It was the beginning of 30
years of “the Troubles”. It lasted until 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement:
they would delete the frontier between IRL and NIRL.
The play is set in the quiet community of Baile Beag (later anglicized to Ballybeg), in
County Donegal, in 1833. The students are not children, they are grown-ups and
they pay Hugh some money in order to receive an education. The second thing
which is not common: they study mostly Greek and Latin. The audience are
confronted to the same problems as the characters: what we are reading is a
translation of Greek and Latin, but also IR. All the characters are supposed to
speak IR. When the play begins, a new law has been decided by the GB government
in 1831: the National Schools.
Hegde Schools were secret schools, parallel schools which took place in the open
air, organized by C. They wanted to preserve C tradition and give an education to C
children, and spoke IR. Those schools were independent, not institutionalized.
The BR government tried to set up a regular network of regular school in IRL, where
EN language was used. It comes from an expression which means “faux”. The
schoolteachers were paid by the students themselves. These schools were also
used to train C priests.
Page 1 of 3
The historical context of the play (the Penal Laws and the surveys especially) is
important. The play is about the visit of EN officers in charge of doing the ordnance
survey: it’s the drawing of a map. It’s based on real historical events. It was
decided to send an army: The Sappers. This special regiment was called the Royal
Engineers. They were under the supervision of Colonel Thomas Colby. They had a
lot of material, very modern equipment for the time.
Brian Friel was a Catholic from the North. Home Rule was opposed by the Unionists
(the Protestants). They wanted at all cost to remain in the UK. It ended with the
Anglo-IR Treaty in 1921. That treaty created not yet the Republic of IRL (1947)
but the Free State of IRL. It also created the province of Northern Ireland. It
remained part of the UK, which became the United Kingdom of GB and Northern IRL.
For decades, they established a series of discriminations against the Catholics in
NIRL: in jobs mostly. The vote was organized so that the constituencies were
divided again according to the number of Unionists inside, so that Protestants
will be better represented. It is called gerrymandering.
the NIRL Civil Rights Association (NICRA) on the modal of the Civil Right
Movement in the US. In Derry, they organized a huge demonstration in 1909. It
was very violently repressed by the police. Why? Because the police were exclusively
composed of P. It was called The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). At the time,
there were journalists: they filmed the events, and this was released on TV. This
triggered riots all over the province.
P and C started to live in separate neighborhoods. The local government was
unable to cope, so London decided to introduce direct provision: a direct
government from the GB. And they sent the BR army. It was the beginning of 30
years of “the Troubles”. It lasted until 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement:
they would delete the frontier between IRL and NIRL.
The play is set in the quiet community of Baile Beag (later anglicized to Ballybeg), in
County Donegal, in 1833. The students are not children, they are grown-ups and
they pay Hugh some money in order to receive an education. The second thing
which is not common: they study mostly Greek and Latin. The audience are
confronted to the same problems as the characters: what we are reading is a
translation of Greek and Latin, but also IR. All the characters are supposed to
speak IR. When the play begins, a new law has been decided by the GB government
in 1831: the National Schools.
Hegde Schools were secret schools, parallel schools which took place in the open
air, organized by C. They wanted to preserve C tradition and give an education to C
children, and spoke IR. Those schools were independent, not institutionalized.
The BR government tried to set up a regular network of regular school in IRL, where
EN language was used. It comes from an expression which means “faux”. The
schoolteachers were paid by the students themselves. These schools were also
used to train C priests.
Page 1 of 3
