123 School Work

Friel said that his intention was that the play concern itself only with exploration of the

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  Friel's Translations is a play set in the midst of deep political and social unrest in Ireland. All of the action is centred around a 'Hedge School', in the small town of Donegal, in 1833. The play opens in this school, as the local people get together in an attempt to learn Classics and Mathematics in accordance with British law. The school's founder, the learned and well meaning, if slightly drunken and doddering figure of Hugh, is absent and so his son, Manus, takes the class. The peaceful scene of local people sitting around learning classics or mathematics is soon to be broken, but for now tensions are deeply submerged, only becoming apparent when placed in the context of the later discord. The scene provides the local context of the play, whilst the wider context is soon made obvious. It is that of a people plagued by the fear of a potato famine and the destruction it would bring to their lives, of a nation being torn apart, not only from within, but also by the subtle invasive force of a peaceful English army, slowly eroding hundreds of years of Irish culture.
       It is only with the introduction of these passionate issues that the normally private realms of these peoples souls are laid open. Friel requires something as desperately important to these people as their culture and their language, as love and hatred, as deeply humanising union, and terribly destructive division to allow us a glimpse into the deepest, most private feelings of a nation as individuals. He finds this beautifully in the flowing context of a torn and broken Ireland trying to heal itself in a medley of conflicting and opposing manners...