Making History (1988), few have commented on the impact this has had on the study of Irish history and its dissemination to a wider public. Translations was the first production of the Field Day Theatre Company, set up at the height of the Northern ‘Troubles’ to explore a cultural ‘fifth province’ that would transcend political differences. While it was rapturously received by audiences, the academics were not so impressed. The respected historical geographer J.H. Andrews pointed out (The Irish Review [1993]) that in Translations the Ordnance Survey had been misrepresented. By the early nineteenth century, the period in which the play is set, it had long ceased to be (except in name) a ‘military operation’, a central trope of the play.
Similarily, Hiram Morgan pointed out (Text & Context [1990]) that a central trope of Making History, that Hugh O’Neill spent his youth in England and thus had a conflicted identity, was incorrect. We now know that O’Neill in fact spent his youth in the Pale. Hiram’s critique was, however, tinged with admiration and envy—admiration for Friel’s ability to communicate imaginatively with a wider audience, and envy that academic historians were not able to do the same. He went on to call for academic historians to become better communicators, to satisy the wider public’s thirst for knowledge about the past; in particular, he suggested the setting up of a popular history magazine. Three years later, in conjunction with others of like mind, and former publisher Rod Eley in particular, History Ireland was born, with Hiram as joint editor. Over twenty years later we’re still here. While we may have been no more than an outer ripple of his imaginative engagement with history, we say ‘Thank you, Mr Friel!’
6 Palmerston Place, Dublin 7
editor@historyireland.com