Golden Moment for Friel

BRIAN FRIEL’S status in the arts world was recognised yesterday after the legendary playwright was presented with a golden torc.

Accepting the highest honour the State can bestow on an artist, Mr Friel said there were certain conditions necessary to be made a Saoi - a person of special standing within the artists’ organisation Aosdána.

“You’ve got to be very old, creatively washed up and the end is around the next bend in the road,” he joked.

Presenting the title, President Mary McAleese said Mr Friel had represented in his work a “largely Catholic community that had lived a reduced existence” on the borderlands of Derry, Donegal and Tyrone.

Mr Friel had been “recognised right around the world as one of the finest playwrights in the English language”, she said. He is “a seminal influence on our Irish theatre, on Irish thinking and on thinking about Ireland”, the President added.

The playwright said he was honoured by the title and the President’s words, but joked that he had been “fast tracked” to the title of Saoi because of his recent stroke. While still walking with a cane, Mr Friel was clearly in high spirits as he accepted the honour.

Born in Omagh in 1929, Mr Friel first came to international prominence with his play Philadelphia Here I Come!, which premiered at the 1964 Dublin Theatre Festival and went on to critical acclaim and success on Broadway.

His other prominent works include The Freedom of the City (1973), a critical examination of the Widgery Tribunal in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday; Dancing at Lughnasa (1990), which also transferred to a long run on Broadway and was made into a film starring Meryl Streep; and what many consider his masterpiece, Faith Healer (1979), a series of three monologues based on the life of a faith healer.

Joining a host of luminaries from the arts world at the ceremony, was actor Ralph Fiennes, who is currently playing in a version of Mr Friel’s play Faith Healer at Dublin’s Gate Theatre.