Editing Brian Friel (section)

===1959 – 1975===

Friel's first radio plays were produced by [[Ronald Mason (drama)|Ronald Mason]] for the [[British Broadcasting Corporation|BBC]] Northern Ireland Home Service in 1958: ''[[A Sort of Freedom]]'' (16 January 1958) and ''[[To This Hard House]]'' (24 April 1958).<ref name="dantanus2">Dantanus, Ulf, ''Brian Friel: A Study.'' Faber & Faber, 1989.</ref><ref name="pine2">Pine, Richard, ''The Diviner: The Art of Brian Friel.'' University College Dublin Press, 1999.</ref> Friel began writing short stories for ''[[The New Yorker]]'' in 1959 and subsequently published two well-received collections: ''The Saucer of Larks'' (1962) and ''The Gold in the Sea'' (1966). These were followed by ''[[A Doubtful Paradise]],'' his first stage play, produced by the Ulster Group Theatre in late August 1960. Friel also 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.<ref>Boltwood, Scott. ''Brian Friel, Ireland, and The North.'' Cambridge University Press, 2007.</ref>

Early in Friel's career, the Irish journalist Sean Ward even referred to him in an ''Irish Press'' article as one of the Abbey Theatre's "rejects". Friel's play, ''[[The Enemy Within (play)|The Enemy Within]]'' (1962) enjoyed success, despite only being on the Abbey stage for 9 performances. Belfast's Lyric Theatre revived it in September 1963 and the BBC Northern Ireland Home Service and Radio Éireann both aired it in 1963. Although Friel later withdrew ''[[The Blind Mice]]'' (1963), it was by far the most successful play of his very early period, playing for 6 weeks at Dublin's Eblana Theatre, revived by the Lyric, and broadcast by Radio Éireann and the BBC Home Service almost ten times by 1967. Friel had a short stint as "observer" at [[Guthrie Theater|Tyrone Guthrie's theater]] in early-1960s Minneapolis; he remarked on it as "enabling" in that it gave him "courage and daring to attempt things".<ref name="obituary_irish_times2"/>

Shortly after returning from his time at the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre, Friel wrote ''[[Philadelphia Here I Come!]]'' (1964). The play made him instantly famous in Dublin, London, and New York.<ref name="obituary_irish_times2" /> ''The Loves of Cass McGuire'' (1966), and ''[[Lovers (play)|Lovers]]'' (1967) were both successful in Ireland, with ''Lovers'' also popular in The United States. Despite Friel's successes in playwriting'','' Friel in the period saw himself as primarily a short story writer, in a 1965 interview stating, "I don't concentrate on the theatre at all. I live on short stories."<ref>Russell, R. (2012). "Brian Friel's Transformation from Short Fiction Writer to Dramatist". ''Comparative Drama'', ''46''(4), 451–474.</ref>

Friel then turned his attention to contemporary Irish political issues, writing ''The Mundy Scheme'' (1969) and ''Volunteers'' (1975). Both plays heavily satirised the [[government of Ireland]]. The latter depicted an archaeological excavation on the day before the site was turned over to a hotel developer, using Dublin's Wood Quay controversy as its contemporary point of reference. The play's title refers to a group of [[Irish Republican Army]] detainees who have been indefinitely interned by the Irish government, and the term ''Volunteer'' is both ironic, in that as prisoners they have no free will, and political, in that the IRA used the term to refer to its members. Using the site as a physical metaphor for the nation's history, the play's action examines how Irish history has been commodified, sanitized, and oversimplified to fit the political needs of society.<ref name="McGrath, F. C 1999">McGrath, F. C. 1999. "Brian Friel's (Post) Colonial Drama  : Language, Illusion, and Politics". ''Irish Studies##. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press (1999). 99.</ref>

By 1968, Friel was again living in Derry, a hotbed of the [[Northern Ireland civil rights movement]], where incidents such as the [[Battle of the Bogside]] inspired Friel's choice to write a new play set in the city.<ref>Winkler, E. (1981). Brian Friel's "The Freedom of the City": Historical Actuality and Dramatic Imagination. ''The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies'', ''7''(1), 12–31. doi:10.2307/25512520.</ref> The play Friel began drafting in Derry would eventually become ''[[The Freedom of the City]]'' (1973). Defying a government ban, Friel marched with members of the [[Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association]] against the policy of internment on 13 January 1972, an event that would become known as  [[Bloody Sunday (1972)|Bloody Sunday]]. During the march, British troops from the [[1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment]] opened fire on the marchers, killing 14 people and wounding a further 26. His personal experience of being fired at by soldiers during the march greatly affected the drafting of ''The Freedom of the City'' as a heavily political play.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/brian-friel/brian-friel-s-interview-with-fintan-o-toole-i-m-not-really-very-good-at-this-kind-of-question-1.2372705|title=Brian Friel's interview with Fintan O'Toole: 'I'm not really very good at this kind of question'|newspaper=The Irish Times|access-date=11 October 2018|language=en-US}}</ref> In the interview, Friel recalled: "It was really a shattering experience that the [[British Army|British army]], this disciplined instrument, would go in as they did that time and shoot thirteen people... to have to throw yourself on the ground because people are firing at you is really a terrifying experience."<ref name="McGrath, F. C 1999"/>