Play Background

Characters list

Manus: Hedge-school master's older son and also his “unpaid assistant” (Friel 1), who highly disapproves of his brother’s role in the renaming of Irish places. Physically he is described in the play as being “pale-faced, lightly built, [and] intense” (Friel 2).

Sarah: A young Irish woman who presents a speech defect, one that is “so bad that all her life she has been considered to be dumb and she has accepted this; when she wishes to communicate, she grunts and makes unintelligible nasal sounds” (Friel 1). Friel also describes her as having a “waiflike appearance” and aged anywhere “from seventeen to thirty-five” (Friel 1). Manus tries to teach her how to speak.

Hugh: Headmaster of the hedge-school in which most of the action takes place, Hugh is an Irishman in his sixties, learned in Latin and Greek, as well as English. Described as a “large man, with a residual dignity, shabbily dressed, [and] carrying a stick” (Friel 20). He is also known for drinking a lot without ever getting drunk. Always intending to expose his argument in three points, Hugh only ever enounces two.

Owen: Hugh’s second son, Owen is described as a “handsome, attractive young man in his twenties" who dresses “smartly,” like a “city man” (Friel 26). He has just come back temporarily from England to work for the British government as interpreter, and help Lancey and Yolland, two British soldiers, in their cartographic mission.

Jimmy Jack: Also known as the “Infant Prodigy” (Friel 2), Jimmy Jack is a student at Hugh’s hedge-school and a bachelor in his sixties. He speaks mostly in Latin and Greek, lives alone, and “comes to [the] evening classes partly for the company and partly for the intellectual stimulation” (Friel 2). He never washes and wears the same dirty clothes all year long. He considers the world of “the gods and ancient myths” (Friel 2) as real as Baile Beag.

Maire: A young Irish woman who has a difficult romantic relationship with Manus at the beginning of the play. She wants to learn English to be able to move to the United States. When she tries to speak English, “her accent is weird because she speaks a foreign language and because she does not understand what she [says]” (Friel 8). She is described as “strong-minded, strong-bodied”, and as being in her “twenties with a head of curly hair” (Friel 7). She soon falls in love with Yolland.

Doalty: A young Irishman in his twenties who is “open-minded, open-hearted, generous and slightly thick,” (Friel 10) or one might say slower to comprehend. He also attends Hugh’s evening classes.

Bridget: Counterpart of Doalty, Bridget is a young Irish woman who is in her twenties as well. Friel describes her as “a plump, fresh young girl, ready to laugh, vain, and with a countrywoman’s instinctive cunning” (Friel 10).

Captain Lancey: Captain of the British regiment in charge of the first Ordnance Survey of Ireland. He does not like Ireland, nor does he try to understand its people due to his lack of interest in anything other than the accomplishment of his mission.

Lieutenant Yolland: The other British soldier in charge of the Ordnance Survey who works in pair with Owen on the renaming of Irish places. He soon falls in love both with Ireland and Maire, which triggers in him a desperate desire to learn Gaelic.

Plot structure: a play in three acts.

Act I: An afternoon on late August 1833

The play opens in a hedge-school before the beginning of one of the evening lessons. Manus tries to teach Sarah how to speak, and Jimmy Jack is there too, observing and making comments on the situation. One after the other the characters who attend the hedge-school’s evening classes make their entrance: first Maire, and then Doalty and Bridget. While waiting for the master to arrive, they all busy themselves with their regular occupations. Manus and Maire, who are in a romantic relationship, discuss his application for a job in the new national school that is being constructed in the area, as well as Maire’s intended departure for America. They are both conscious that once the national school opens, it will be the end of this small hedge-school. However Manus says – to Maire’s discontent – that he did not apply for the position because Hugh, his father, already did. Hugh finally arrives to give the class and announces the arrival of a certain Captain Lancey, who is also accompanied by Hugh’s second son, Owen. The latter has just come back from England after six years of absence. He says he is employed by the British as “a part-time, underpaid, civilian interpreter” (Friel 30) to translate Irish into English for the soldiers on mission in Baile Beag. Then enter Captain Lancey and Lieutenant Yolland, two “Royal Engineers” (Friel 32), who are introduced by Owen to the people of the evening class. Lancey, who is surprised that the students do not speak English, explains the proceedings of the Ordnance Survey, “the first ever comprehensive survey of [the] entire country” (Friel 33) while Owen translates. When Yolland’s turn comes to address the class, he does not know what to say except that he has already fallen in love with Ireland, that he regrets not being able to speak Gaelic, and that he wants to learn the language. Manus, who understands English, criticizes Owen for what he considers to be a very loose translation of what Lancey said. He thinks that Owen is hiding from them that in reality these happenings in Baile Beag are no less than a “bloody military operation” (Friel 36).

Act II: A few days later

Scene 1:

The scene opens with Owen and Yolland working on the renaming of Irish places. Owen is doing most of the work while Yolland is distracted because he has become more concerned with learning Gaelic, and thinking of how beautiful the names of the Irish places sound to him. Yolland says he gives up on the work: he does not want to do it anymore. He even admits that what is going on at Baile Beag is “an eviction of sorts” (Friel 52), but Owen ignores him. Manus then comes in and announces that he has been offered the opportunity to open a hedge-school of his own at “Inis Meadhon” (Friel 57), which is located 50 miles southward from Baile Beag. He has accepted the position and is to leave the following Monday. Towards the end of the scene Maire arrives and mentions a dance that is to take place the following night which she will attend, in hopes that Yolland might attend as well.

Scene 2:

The following night, the scene opens with Maire and Yolland running away from the dance, hand in hand. Then follows an exchange during which they cannot understand each other, but they both admit loving the other. Finally they kiss, but Sarah catches them and runs off to tell Manus.

Act III: The evening of the following day

Manus suddenly decides to leave Baile Beag. He is actually running away. Yolland is nowhere to be found and Manus is likely to be under suspicion and held responsible for his disappearance because of his angry search for him the previous night upon finding out about Yolland and Maire. Owen tells Manus that he is a fool for leaving, and that in doing so he will only reinforce suspicions when Lancey comes to question them about Yolland’s disappearance. After Manus’s departure, Doalty and Bridget come in announcing the arrival of fifty more British soldiers carrying bayonets: they are preparing a military operation. They tell Owen that Hugh and Jimmy Jack were on the streets sometime earlier to protest and show their discontent, calling the soldiers different names meaning "invaders.”

Lancey comes in and announces that Yolland is missing, and that the British army is looking for him. He says that if they do not find him, they will destroy everything in Baile Beag, and proceed to evictions and levellings. Suddenly Doalty tells Lancey that his whole camp is on fire, which makes the latter leave. Doalty asks Owen if Lancey really meant what he said, to which Owen responds yes, and that anyway the British army would proceed to evictions whether Yolland is found or not. Hugh and Jimmy Jack come in, completely drunk. Hugh says that they will now have no choice but learn the new English names given to the Irish places and to make them their own.

Works consulted:

Friel, Brian. Translations. London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1981. Print.

Written by: Fanny Robuchon