On Brian Friel's 80th birthday The Irish Times celebrates the life and work of one of Ireland's foremost playwriters, wih contributions from Thomas Kilroy, Sara Keating, Colm Tóibín and Fintan O'Toole.
- In celebration of a friend As playwright Brian Friel turns 80, Thomas Kilroy recalls the night he first met the irreverent storyteller, and how their friendship, as well as Friel's international reputation, have grown over the past 40 years
- Delving deep into divided Donegal landscape The geography of Brian Friel's work is moulded in County Donegal, and the surrounds of Glenties, but his characters speak far beyond the history and the borders of place forging the characters in his plays. But place carries the weight not only of history and geographical location character, writes Sara Keating
- A craft of words to work a halo around the ordinary Two books of short stories Brian Friel finely crafted in the 1960s offer a foretaste of the dramatic themes that would dominate Translations', Lughnasa' and Faith Healer', writes Colm Toíbín
- Tracing a rocky path from the past Friel's work allows us to feel the tension between the desperate need to tell the story and the essential impossibility of doing so, writes Fintan O'Toole
- Living lines Friels finest dramas
- Brian Friel: A dramatic life
- Tributes to a world class playwright
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