What do names on a map say about those places, the people who live there and their history?
A play about the questions this raises will be coming to a Hackney theatre this month.
Opening in the Tower Theatre in Stoke Newington on March 18, Translations, by Irish playwright Brian Friel, begins its run just after St Patrick’s Day.
Set in 1833 in the fictional townland of Baile Beag in County Donegal, the play explores the cultural and personal impact of replacing Gaelic names with English ones during the first Ordnance Survey of Ireland.
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The story unfolds in a "hedge school"—an unofficial classroom often held in barns or private homes—as a group of Royal Engineers arrives and begins anglicising the region's place names. These schools were vital centres of Irish learning and identity, operating in defiance of colonial laws that denied formal education to the Catholic population.
Mr Friel described the play as “a play about language and only about language,” using the seemingly bureaucratic act of translation to explore themes of identity, belonging, and colonial power.
Written in 1980, Translations was the first play to be staged by the Field Day Theatre Company, founded by Mr Friel and actor Stephen Rea. Through the interactions of a small group in a rural Irish community, Mr Friel reveals how even administrative actions can have deep and lasting consequences.
The Tower Theatre will host 11 performances of the play from March 18 to 28. Tickets cost £9 to £15 and are available at www.towertheatre.org.uk/translations.
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