When Heroes Become Heroines: Brian Friel Re-makes History

IJASS JOURNAL, 2024

This paper reflects on Brian Friel’s purposeful reshaping of the history and exile of Hugh O’Neill, the 2nd Earl of Tyrone who led an uprising against the English from 1595 to 1603, with the intention of disclosing the ambiguity of his political life in Ireland. Since O’Neill had collaborated with the English crown before he became the leader of this insurgence, Friel reflects on the complex strategies adopted by this Irish hero to maintain his political power while fighting the colonizers. Having premiered at the time of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the play “Making History” explores the delicate theme of exile and the permanent consequences it has on those forced to die far from their homeland. We argue that O’Neill’s behavior in the play places him both as colonized and colonizer, allowing this dramaturgical work to reach both Irish/ Catholic as well as British/Protestant audiences

2021

The present paper focuses on Irish drama written and staged before and after independence from the perspective of the binary opposition of traditional gendered representations of colony and colonizer. From A. Gregory and W.B. Yeats's Cathleen ni Houlihan (1902), Synge's Playboy of the Western World (1907) and O'Casey's Dublin Trilogy (1923-26) to Teresa Deevy's The King of Spain's Daughter (1935) and Katie Roche (1936), and SeánO'Faolain's She Had to Do Something (1937), the paper underscores how these plays present women who only apparently contradict traditional and externally imposed strictures. In the light of Maria Lugones' theories on the coloniality of gender – as regards the intersection between gender, race and sexuality – the paper investigates the extent to which Irish playwrights challenged the traditional image of women and the role religion, politics and the examples of other European countries had in helping, or hindering, the const...

LUX: A Transdisciplinary Journ al of Writing & Research from Claremont Graduate University, 2013

Two Epigraphs “All profound changes of consciousness, by their very nature, bring with them characteristic amnesias. Out of such oblivions, in specific historical circumstances, spring narratives.” -Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities “Nations, like narratives, lose their origins in the myths of time, and only fully realize their horizons in the mind’s eye.” -Homi K. Bhabha, Nation & Narration In his Discourse on Colonialism, Aimé Césaire writes, “A civilization that proves incapable of solving the problems it creates is a decadent civilization. A civilization that chooses to close its eyes to its most crucial problems is a stricken civilization. A civilization that uses its principles for trickery and deceit is a dying civilization” (Césaire np). Postcolonial and historicized readings of Irish literatures describe the evils of colonialism, and the ways it has distorted nationhood and nation-building to serve the ends of greedy empires. But, what happens to a nation or nations in the vacuum after a major colonial power abandons the colony or is driven out? Obviously, there is much hard work involved, sacrifice on all sides, and recognition of past wrongs inflicted. In the epigraphs above, Anderson and Bhabha remind us that more than simply politics, there is also a cultural element involved, indeed, essential to such work. For the Irish, whose civilization and lands have been ravaged by colonization and internal struggles for centuries, this cultural element often finds voice in the theater. Dramatic theater allows artists to create socio-reflective spaces in which audiences can participate in the postcolonial experience to some extent, and certainly find their preconceived ideas challenged. In the space of theater, a mirror is held up to the nation, vital questions are proposed, and a community emerges to collectively search for answers. The cultural artistry of Ireland allows these nations to reconceive of themselves and their pasts in terms of their present and future. The liminal space which postcolonial drama occupies presents audiences and participants with questions of hybridity, as a potential solution to cultural and national essentialism.

Irlandeses: Spanish Journal of Irish Studies; Volumen: Number 2, pp. 183-204, 2007

Despite the experimental and subversive work of Irish feminist filmmakers such as Pat Murphy and Margo Harkin in the 1980s, as Gerardine Meaney has contended, "the image of woman as Ireland, Ireland as woman, remains powerful and pervasive in the new Irish cinema" (1998: 250). The cinematic convention of representing Ireland through female characters becomes particularly relevant in two recent Irish historical films: Michael Collins (1996), directed and written by Irish Neil Jordan, and The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006), written by Scottish Paul Laverty and directed by English Ken Loach. In their dealing with themes such as military occupation, colonisation and the heated debate about the Treaty, both films maintain the nationalist rhetoric that represents Ireland as a woman/mother in a direct manner. Over the course of this essay, I shall try to chart the implications of both films' representations of women, with a view to demonstrating how, even at present, the trope of Mother Ireland continues to be deep in the national unconscious. Key Words. Cinematic representations of Ireland; Michael Collins; The Wind that Shakes the Barley; trope of Mother Ireland; female republican activism. Resumen. A pesar del trabajo experimental y subversivo llevado a cabo en los años 80 por cineastas feministas de la talla de Pat Murphy y Margo Harkin, la asociación simbólica de Irlanda con el mito de la Madre Tierra (Mother Ireland) sigue estando vigente en el cine irlandés del siglo XX, tal y como subraya Gerardine Meaney (1998: 250). Dicha representación del papel de la mujer como madre y símbolo del país adquiere especial relevancia en dos películas recientes sobre la historia de Irlanda: Michael Collins (1996), dirigida y escrita por el irlandés Neil Jordan, y El Viento que Mece la Cebada (2006), escrita por el escocés Paul Laverty y dirigida por el inglés Ken Loach. Al abordar temas tales como la ocupación militar, la colonización inglesa, y el acalorado debate sobre el Tratado Anglo-irlandés, ambas películas mantienen de forma directa la simbiosis entre madre, mujer y nación. Tras analizar el papel que ejercen los personajes femeninos en ambas películas, este artículo pretende demostrar la gran influencia que el mito de Mother Ireland continua ejerciendo en el subconsciente nacional. Palabras clave. representaciones cinematográficas de Irlanda; Michael Collins; El Viento que Mece la Cebada; representación simbólica de la mujer en la cultura irlandesa; el mito de Mother Ireland; mujeres militantes en la Guerra de la Independencia y la Guerra Civil irlandesa.

Journal of Interdisciplinary Feminist Thought, 2014

Any attempt to give an account (albeit a selective one) of the life and work of Brian Friel will inevitably risk incurring the wrath of the spectre of Friel‚ who declared in his 1971 radio broadcast talk, titled ‘Self-Portrait’, that he disliked the illusion of ‘tidiness’ that a recitation of facts about a person’s life can impose upon that individual’s identity. Friel declared that facts in the context of an autobiography, and presumably in a biography also, ‘can be pure fiction and be no less reliable for that’. (Friel 1999, p. 38) For this reason, my account of Friel’s personal and artistic life shall endeavour to weave the verifiable parts of Friel’s biography into a critical account of his artistic oeuvre and, by so doing, I shall offer some version of the ‘truth’ concerning the existence and legacy of this giant of Irish and world theatre. The portrait that I shall paint will be one in which the life illuminates the art and vice versa.