Brian Friel
Beginnings
Kelly Matthews
“Brian Friel is one of the great playwrights of the last 50 years but his genius did not come fully formed. Kelly Matthews wonderfully illuminates the early history of the development of Friel’s literary and theatrical imagination and his efforts to make his mark as a writer through his interactions with the BBC, the Irish Times, the New Yorker, the professional theatre. Superbly researched and engagingly written, this is an essential work for anyone interested in the theatre, in the Ireland of the 1950s and early 1960s and in the difficult struggles that are so often the long prelude to fame.” Fintan O’Toole
“Brian Friel: Beginnings’ by Kelly Matthews is published by Four Courts Press and is out now. Based on letters and documents recently discovered in the BBC and New Yorker archives, primarily correspondence between Friel and his early mentors, BBC radio producer Ronald Mason and New Yorker editor Roger Angell, the book shows the evolution of Friel’s work, and indeed his personality. What’s remarkable and what leaps out immediately, is his incredible openness to what we now call “feedback”. Which in those days was far more detailed, and indeed harsh, than anyone would expect now ... What’s also remarkable is Friel’s persistence in the face of disappointment ... the openness of Friel’s response to criticism and disappointment – to failure, essentially – is a glorious lesson in resilience.” Emily Hourican, the Sunday Independent, Sunday 9th June 2024
“Matthew’s book brings us into the mind, writing and family life of the young schoolmaster, when a different path in life could have directed Friel to stay within the classroom, like his father before him." Barry Houlihan, Irish Literary Supplement, Fall 2025
“Matthew’s book is as much biography as it is an analysis of some of Friel’s work [offering] new and interesting insights into the literary and dramatic career of one of the most important Irish dramatists.” Graham Price, Reading Ireland: The Little Magazine Number 21, Spring/Summer 2025
“Brian Friel: Beginnings, by Kelly Matthews, aims at a general readership with its engaging style, evocative illustrations and narrative focused on Friel’s early writing career. Kelly Matthews was inspired to write her book by her discovery of two previously unexplored collections, held in the BBC Written Archives Centre in Reading, England, and in the New Yorker archives housed at the New York Public Library in New York City. As a fledgling author, Friel wrote seventy-five letters each to two early advocates and guides: Ronald Mason, drama producer for BBC Northern Ireland (who would go on to become Head of Radio Drama for the entire BBC system), and Roger Angell, Friel’s editor at the New Yorker during the years in which he sold fiction and short features to the magazine. These letters offer vivid glimpses of Friel’s primary concerns at different stages of his first years as a professional writer. Above all, they illustrate his determination both to master his craft and to subsist as an author. As Matthews mildly observes, ‘The young Brian Friel that emerges from his letters to these early mentors is different from the reclusive, tight-lipped, even stubborn writer the world would come to know, or to think we knew. He is funny, self-deprecating, open to endless revisions, eager to please, hungry for honest criticism and encouragement’ … Friel’s lengthy career, prodigious output in several genres, wide sphere of literary and cultural influence, pre-digital archive and voluminous correspondence make him a rich but daunting biographical subject. It will likely be decades before anything resembling a comprehensive critical assessment of his contributions to Irish literature and theatre becomes feasible. In the meantime, we might hope to see more books like Matthews’s one that offer chapters of biography related to specific phases of his writing life.” Marilynn Richtarik, Review of Irish Studies in Europe (RISE)
