28 Facts About Brian Friel

Brian Friel had been considered one of the greatest living English-language dramatists.

Brian Friel has been likened to an "Irish Chekhov" and described as "the universally accented voice of Ireland".

Brian Friel's plays have been compared favourably to those of contemporaries such as Samuel Beckett, Arthur Miller, Harold Pinter and Tennessee Williams.

Brian Friel was elected to the honorary position of Saoi of Aosdana.

Brian Friel's plays were commonly produced on Broadway in New York City throughout this time, as well as in Ireland and the UK.

In 1980 Brian Friel co-founded Field Day Theatre Company and his play Translations was the company's first production.

Heaney and Brian Friel first became friends after Brian Friel sent the young poet a letter following publication of his book Death of a Naturalist.

Brian Friel was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the British Royal Society of Literature and the Irish Academy of Letters.

Brian Friel was appointed to Seanad Eireann in 1987 and served until 1989.

In later years, Dancing at Lughnasa reinvigorated Brian Friel's oeuvre, bringing him Tony Awards, the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play.

Brian Friel was born in 1929 at Knockmoyle, before the family moved to nearby Killyclogher, both places close to Omagh in County Tyrone His exact birth date and name are ambiguous.

Brian Friel's father was Patrick Friel, a primary school teacher and later a councillor on Londonderry Corporation, the local city council in Derry.

Brian Friel's mother was Mary, postmistress of Glenties, County Donegal.

The family moved to Derry when Brian Friel was ten years old.

Brian Friel married Anne Morrison in 1954; they had four daughters and one son.

Brian Friel supported Irish nationalism and was a member of the Nationalist Party.

Taoiseach Charles Haughey nominated Brian Friel to serve as a member of Seanad Eireann in 1987, where he served until 1989.

Brian Friel was survived by his wife Anne and children Mary, Judy, Sally and David.

Brian Friel began writing short stories for The New Yorker in 1959 and subsequently published two well-received collections: The Saucer of Larks and The Gold in the Sea.

Brian Friel wrote 59 articles for The Irish Press, a Dublin-based party-political newspaper, from April 1962 to August 1963; this series included short stories, political editorials on life in Northern Ireland and Donegal, his travels to Dublin and New York City, and his childhood memories of Derry, Omagh, Belfast, and Donegal.

Brian Friel then turned his attention to contemporary Irish political issues, writing The Mundy Scheme and Volunteers.

The play Brian Friel began drafting in Derry would eventually become The Freedom of the City.

Brian Friel returned to a position of Irish theatrical dominance during the 1990s, particularly with the release of Dancing at Lughnasa at the turn of the decade.

Brian Friel had been thinking about writing a "Lough Derg" play for several years, and his Wonderful Tennessee portrays three couples in their failed attempt to return to a pilgrimage sit to a small island off the Ballybeg coast, though they intend to return not to revive the religious rite but to celebrate the birthday of one of their members with alcohol and culinary delicacies.

The latter two plays stage Brian Friel's continued fascination with Chekhov's work.

The Home Place, focusing on the aging Christopher Gore and the last of Brian Friel's plays set in Ballybeg, was his final full-scale work.

The National Library of Ireland houses the 160 boxes of The Brian Friel papers, containing notebooks, manuscripts, playbills, correspondence, contracts, unpublished manuscripts, programmes, production photos, articles, uncollected essays, and a vast collection of ephemera relating to Friel's career and creative process from 1959 through 2000.

In 2011, an additional set of Brian Friel's papers were made available in the National Library of Ireland.