Friel’s Volunteers and Heaney’s North to be brought to life on 50th anniversary with unique Derry performances
Two masterworks from Brian Friel and Seamus Heaney will be brought to life by community voices in historic Derry venues this weekend.
Friel’s Volunteers and Heaney’s iconic North collection will both be aired at unique locations over Saturday and Sunday, August 30-31, in what is their 50th anniversary year.
On Saturday morning at 8.30am Volunteers, Act 1 will be performed at Ebrington Square.
This will be followed by recitals from North, Part 1 in First Derry Presbyterian Church at 11am with the poems Mossbawn, Sunlight, The Seed Cutters, Antaeus, Belderg, Funeral Rites, North, Viking, Dublin: Trial Pieces, The Digging Skeleton, Bone Dreams and Come to the Bower featuring.
In the afternoon at 2pm the recitals will continue in the Gasyard with the poems Bog Queen, The Grauballe Man, Punishment, Strange Fruit, Kinship, Ocean’s Love to Ireland, Aisling, Act of Union, The Betrothal of Cavehill and Hercules and Antaeus.
The first day will conclude at Ebrington at 4.30pm with the performance of Volunteers, Act 2.
On Sunday at 8.30am Volunteers, Act 1 will again be performed at Ebrington Square.
At 11am the action turns to the Bishop Street Courthouse where there will be recitals from North, Part 2.
The Unacknowledged Legislator’s Dream, Whatever You Say Say Nothing and Freedman Note will feature.
People are advised to arrive 30 minutes early for security clearance at the courthouse.
At 2pm recitals from North, Part 2 will continue at Lumen Christi with Singing School, The Ministry of Fear, A Constable Calls, Orange Drums, Tyrone 1966, Summer 1969, Fosterage and Exposure.
Festivities will again be brought to a close at Ebrington at 4.30pm with the performance of Volunteers, Act 2.
The performances are part of FrielDays: A Homecoming, a five year celebrationof the late great playwright which began this year 2025, the 10th anniversary of Friel’s death, and will continue until 2029, the centenary of his birth.
This production of ‘Volunteers’ has been billed as a stunning site-specific production to mark its 50th anniversary.
"Set on an archaeological dig by the river, the play follows political prisoners excavating Viking remains while facing a death sentence from fellow inmates for their ‘treasonous’ cooperation.
"This powerful work, which premiered alongside Heaney’s North in 1975, explores themes of history, betrayal, and moral compromise through the lens of Ireland’s troubled past and present.
"Produced by The Playhouse in partnership with Kabosh Theatre, this unique presentation takes place in a specially constructed outdoor ‘dig set’ in the Keep at Ebrington Square, a former British Army barracks overlooking the River Foyle.
"The atmospheric location enhances the play’s archaeological themes, creating an immersive experience where audience members feel seated within an actual excavation site,” the organisers state.
Heaney’s fourth poetry collection North has been described as transformative and was among the works that earned the Bellaghy poet the Nobel Prize for literature in 1995. It too was published in 1975.
Poems from the collection will feature in ‘an extraordinary community-driven performance across four intimate recitals’.
"This unique production features over 20 local readers from both cultural traditions in Derry~Londonderry, each personally connected to their chosen poems.
"A baker will read ‘Sunlight’ and ‘Theatre of Witness’ participants will share ‘Funeral Rites’ and a bouncer will perform ‘Hercules and Antaeus’ demonstrating poetry’s power to transcend social boundaries.
"The complete 30-poem collection explores themes of violence, history and identity through Heaney’s unflinching examination of bog bodies and ancient rituals.
"Five traditional musicians provide gentle accompaniment with harp, wooden flute, Lambeg drum, bodhrán, and fiddle, weaving together the region’s musical heritage and creating a communal experience that transforms these powerful verses through local voices,” said the organisers.
The 2025 instalment of FrielDays - A Homecoming is now at its midpoint, since opening with Dancing at Lughnasa at the start of August on Lughnasa itself.
And last weekend there were performances of two of Friel's works, on both sides of the border: Translations in Dunlewey, Donegal, and The Home Place in Sion Mills, Co. Tyrone.
FrielDays: A Homecoming has been billed as a ground-breaking five-year celebration of the work of one of Ireland’s greatest ever writers.
The ambition is that by 2029 – the centenary of Friel’s birth – all 29 of his plays will be performed across the whole year.
Dancing at Lughnasa, Translations, The Home Place, Faith Healer and Volunteers are the plays being performed in this the festival’s inaugural year.
Curated with a contemporary sense of place, throughout the border communities and landscapes of Donegal, Derry and Tyrone, FrielDays aims to present each play in a setting relevant to its theme and in the season and time of day in which it was set.
Brian Friel was born in Omagh soon after the partition of Ireland and moved to Derry when he was 10.
For the last 43 years of his life, when most of his work was written, he lived in Inishowen.
Seán Doran and Liam Browne of Arts Over Borders have said said: “Brian Friel is Ireland’s preeminent dramatist of the late 20th century. He is the ultimate ‘shared island’ dramatist, the 86 years of his life shared almost equally between NI and the Republic of Ireland.
“Fittingly, FrielDays is a truly transnational cross-border project, bringing the stories and characters of Friel’s life’s work to the very locations that inspired their creation.”
Golden tickets for each of the full days of Volunteers and North are available priced at £25 and can be purchased from the Derry Playhouse and online at https://www.derryplayhouse.co.uk/event/volunteers-north-golden-tickets#book