Sir, – The news that the Glenties home of Brian Friel's maternal grandparents, and of the five sisters immortalised in his Dancing at Lughnasa, is to become a Brian Friel Centre is to be welcomed by all admirers of the great playwright (Peter Murtagh, "Friel's 'Dancing at Lughnasa' cottage to be preserved", January 18th).
The fact that Joe Mulholland, director of the MacGill Summer School, is in charge of this honourable enterprise is good news too. The shades of “those five brave Glenties women” (Friel’s words about his aunts) will modestly salute the enterprise.
All the words that followed Friel’s death in October, concentrated, not surprisingly, on his work as a playwright. His early career as a short story writer has to some extent been neglected.
He published his first collection of stories, A Saucer of Larks in 1962, and his second, The Gold in the Sea, in 1966.
There are, I think, four stories that never appeared in book form. He wrote perhaps 30 stories in all.
It is time some enterprising Irish publisher produced a stout volume of the complete stories of Brian Friel.
It would be another worthy monument to a writer whose work honours Irish life in the 20th century with a unique and illuminating vision. – Yours, etc,
RONAN FARREN,
Killiney,
Co Dublin.