Photographer Bobby Hanvey had unrivalled access to Brian Friel. Here, we republish a story on a 2008 exhibition and a select gallery of some of his photographs of Friel

Playwright’s language will ring out around the world for as long as theatre survives

His words came from a place where his keen sense of language picked up the cadences of poetry

From Killyclogher, to Derry, to Ballybeg

Brian Friel knew he was in debt to Donegal, the setting for his finest works, and a place he loved – though never uncritically

Those of us privileged to know and love the great playwright will cherish his friendship

Edited excerpts from Friel’s regular newspaper column from the late 1950s and early 1960s

Friel established himself as an heir to the silences of Beckett and father to the tradition of monologue drama

From Philadelphia Here I Come! to The Home Place, Peter Crawley selects Friel’s finest

‘Our world is better for having had Brian Friel in it and now seems a lot smaller’

With the opening, in 1979 and 1980, of three extraordinary plays – ‘Aristocrats’, ‘Translations’ and ‘Faith Healer’ – Brian Friel became one of the great playwrights of his age

Playwright ‘part of the theatrical life of every theatre house’ in Ireland, Abbey director says

At the MacGill Summer School in 2008 the playwright, a famously reluctant interviewee, finally agreed to talk to ‘The Irish Times’

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Major plays include Philadelphia, Here I Come! and Dancing at Lughnasa