Translations is an exploration of a language, myth and identity under threat from colonisation.

This play is lyrical, political, thought-provoking, and also has some laugh out loud moments. Written in

1980 but set in 1833, Translations addresses a wide range of issues, stretching from language and

communication to Irish history and cultural imperialism. Friel said that his play "should have been

written in Irish" but, despite this fact, he carefully crafted the verbal action in English, bringing the

political questions of the play into focus

Set in a hedge-school in Baile Beag (Ballybeg) in Donegal in 1833, on the eve of the Irish Famine,

the drama unfolds as a detachment of Royal Engineers arrive in the town to make the first

ordinance survey of Ireland. For the purpose of cartography the local Gaelic place names are to

be recorded and rendered into English. This event, along with the impending introduction of a

national school’s system which will provide education exclusively through the English language,

provides the catalyst to explore the effects of this shift from an indigenous, Irish-speaking culture,

to an imposed English-speaking culture on the lives of a group of characters.

Language and its failure to accommodate experience preoccupy all the characters. There is

Yolland, the young English officer who falls in love with both the town and a local girl, Máire. He is

trying to learn Irish so he can woo her. Máire, herself, is learning English so she can escape

poverty and emigrate to America. There is Sarah, a mute girl just trying to speak her own name.

Hugh is the hedge-school master and teaches Latin and Greek through Irish. And then there is

Owen, the hedge-master’s son who left for Dublin and has returned to act as a translator for the

Royal Engineers.