SOURCE: "Brian Friel: Transcending the Irish National Pastime," in The New Criterion, Vol. 10, pp. 35-41.

In the following essay, Tillinghast discusses the function of language in Friel's plays and its pertinence to issues of Irish society.

HUGH: Indeed, Lieutenant. A rich language. A rich literature. You'll find, sir, that certain cultures expend on their vocabularies and syntax acquisitive energies and ostentations entirely lacking in their material lives. I suppose you could call us a spiritual people.

OWEN: (Not unkindly; more out of embarrassment before the Lieutenant) Will you stop that nonsense, Father?

HUGH: Nonsense? What nonsense?… Yes, it is a rich language, Lieutenant, full of the mythologies of fantasy and hope and self-deception—a syntax opulent with tomorrows. It is our response to mud cabins and a diet of potatoes; our only method of replying to … inevitabilities. (To OWEN) Can you give me the loan of half-a-crown?

"How...