Brian Friel’s plays to be brought home to cross-Border communities that inspired them
Five-year project will stage each play in a setting relevant to its theme and in the season it was set
Brian Friel
Letters by Oliver Sacks review: Great light cast on neurologist, author and humanist
Kate Edgar’s compilation paints a detailed portrait of a sometimes shy, uncertain, excitable human who was also a deeply compassionate and open-hearted outsider
Amitav Ghosh: ‘Ireland is where the British created all their colonial methods, it’s where they tried it out first’
Acclaimed Indian writer Amitav Ghosh’s new work explores how the climate crisis has its roots in European colonialism
Poets’ prose: Thinking about questions posed by poems, from Seamus Heaney to Eavan Boland
The Frontier of Writing: A Study of Seamus Heaney’s Prose edited by Ian Hickey and Eugene O’Brien; Citizen Poet: New & Selected Essays by Eavan Boland; Questioning Ireland by Thomas McCarthy
Róisín Ingle on Kathleen Watkins: She loved life, poetry and Gaybo. Conversation flowed from her like music
Kathleen Watkins was one of the most enthusiastic people I’ve ever met
Molly Sweeney: Brian Friel revival features fine performances and elegant staging
Dublin Theatre Festival 2024: Andrew Flynn’s production, with Genevieve Hulme-Beaman, Denis Conway and Manus Halligan, makes up for play’s slight staticness
Brian Friel: Beginnings by Kelly Matthews – The making of a highly competitive playwright
Broadway, here he comes. But first there were Ulster feiseanna, sports and his family’s literary drive
Dancing at Lughnasa review: Gate’s triumphant, breathtakingly beautiful revival deserves groaning houses
Theatre: Caroline Byrne’s production, featuring Zara Devlin, Peter Gowen and Ruth McGill, makes both dream and reverie of Brian Friel’s indestructible play
The Guide: the Kneecap film, Nicki Minaj and other events to see, shows to book and ones to catch before they end
July 6th-12th: The best movies, music, art and more coming your way this week
Anne Friel on her late husband playwright Brian: ‘I was crazy about him. He was everything’
Rehearsals are underway for a new production of Dancing at Lughnasa at the Gate this summer, and a new book about the playwright was published this week
Thomas Kilroy’s death feels like the end of an era for Irish theatre
The writer was often mentioned as part of a ‘god tier’ of Irish playwrights, alongside Tom Murphy and, especially, his close friend Brian Friel
Ridley Scott’s crude dismissal of historians is galling
Director insisted history does not matter, but the best film-makers strike a delicate balance between narrative and historical fact
Making Empire: Incisive study of Ireland’s complex role in the British empire
TCD historian skilfully traces a history of conquest, assimilation and defiance that came to shape not just Ireland but Britain and its global empire
Leo Varadkar needs better cultural reference points than Benefits Street
It was a jaw-dropping moment that makes you wonder about the cultural diet of our political leaders. Never mind: here are some recommendations to get them back on track
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