The present, 1977
Commandant Frank Butler’s living quarters – a detached house close to a small military barracks in a remote part of County Donegal, Ireland.
The furnishings of the living room are old and worn. Fireplace in the centre; an armchair on each side. The armchair left of the fireplace is of wicker. Small table, television set, sideboard on which are drinks. Some family photographs on the walls. In the garden a summer seat and some old deckchairs.
The action takes place in the living room and garden on a warm May evening and night.
SIR: May 24th; Commandant Frank Butler’s home just outside the village of Ballybeg; a remote and run-down army camp in the wilds of Donegal, and a day of celebration because Commandant Butler and his company have returned in triumph after five months service with the United Nations in the Middle East.
TINA: It’s like a carnival, isn’t it?… The Number One Army Band – first time ever in Ballybeg!
FRANK: But the highlight of the evening, Helen – I was presented with an illuminated address by the people of Ballybeg!… But being publicly addressed by the people of Ballybeg – ‘you are our most illustrious citizen’ sort of stuff – my God they don’t know me and we don’t know them!
FRANK: Walking over there from the camp, d’you know what I was thinking: what has a lifetime in the army done to me? Wondering have I carried over into this life the too rigid military discipline that – that the domestic life must have been bruised, damaged, by stern attitudes that are necessary over.
MIRIAM: That this bloody wet hole ruined her health and that he wouldn’t accept a transfer – always waiting for the big promotion that would be worthy of him and that never came… As mother used to say – (Grand accent) ‘Miriam, you’re neither a Butler nor a Hogan. I’m afraid you’re just – pure Ballybeg’.
MIRIAM: Until Charlie gets home from court in Glenties.
FRANK: I’ll get someone to drive you over to Derry.
BEN: Took the jeep and went to the dance in Omagh.
BEN: That famous picnic years ago.
HELEN: On Portnoo Pier!
MIRIAM: All into the car – back home like the hammers of hell — and you know those roads along the Gweebarra.
SIR: And across the bay there’s an attractive little island (Innishkeel). Actually you don’t walk out from Portnoo. You go to Narin just over the road.
MIRIAM: Tell him we’re still waiting for the sewage out at Killclooney.
Ardbeg
Bogs beyond Loughcrillan
Carrickfad
Culhame
Tor Mor
Mr Patrick Friel, principal, Long Tower Boys’ School, Derry, with his wife and family, Mr Brian Friel, B.A., Miss Nanette Friel, B.A., P.E.T., Omagh, and Miss Mary Friel, P.E.T., Derry, have arrived at Narin on holiday. An annual visitor, Mr Friel is a keen fisherman on the local rivers. (Friday 2 July 1950 The Derry Journal).
BRIAN FRIEL: It wasn’t until I was ten that we moved to Derry, in 1939…There was, besides, the wonderful position of our new house, the last in a terrace and directly opposite the army barracks. From our drawing-room window I’d an upper circle view of the whole drama of military life – of marching solders, and tanks, and artillery, and bayonet practice.¹
✭ Living Quarters, Book Jacket, courtesy of The Gallery Press
✭ Living Quarters, Book Jacket, London: Faber & Faber 1978
✭ Postcards of Donegal, Courtesy of Donegal County Museum
✭ Living Quarters, National Theatre of Northern Greece, 2013. With kind permission of the theatre director and the photographer Kostas Papantoniou
✭ Living Quarters, The Lir, National Academy of Dramatic Art, 2015. With kind permission of the Lir and photographer Keith Dixon.
✭ Living Quarters (1977) by Brian Friel (London: Faber & Faber) 1978
✭ Living Quarters (1977) by Brian Friel in Brian Friel Collected Plays 2, Co. Meath: Gallery Books 2016
✭ ¹The Green Years: A Talk by Brian Friel (1964) in Delaney, Paul (ed.) Brian Friel in Conversation. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press 2000, p.15
An Action of the County Donegal Heritage Plan
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