A NEW Brian Friel Centre is being planned for Glenties with a fundraising campaign launched to progress the project.
A Gofundme page is now live which will raise €50,000 to complete phase one of this unique and exciting project. Brian Friel was one of Ireland’s greatest playwrights with his works performed all over the world from Broadway to the West End from the Abbey Theatre to the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Minneapolis. But it is Glenties and the surrounding Donegal landscape, that has become immortalised in several of his plays as the fictional village ‘Ballybeg’.
It is therefore fitting that to mark his significant literary and dramatic legacy that a Centre be established in Glenties to honour the life and work of Brian Friel.
Speaking about the new Centre, Anne Friel, widow of Brian Friel said: “The Friel family are absolutely delighted that the Court House in Glenties will be home to the Brian Friel Centre. Glenties was a very special place to him”. The Brian Friel Trust was established in 2017 to found a ‘Brian Friel Centre’, honouring his rich cultural legacy.
The vision and plan of the Trust is to establish a centre incorporating ‘The Laurels’ and ‘The Court house’ in Glenties. The Laurels was home to Brian Friel’s mother and is the setting of his play ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’.
The Trust’s ongoing vision is to completely restore and renovate The Laurels as the Dancing at Lughnasa House and to establish the main centre in the nearby Court House. Since 2017, the Trust has sourced the funds to buy The Laurels and has secured the integrity of the building, which had fallen into disrepair, including the roof, windows and outer walls which have now been weatherproofed.
Just down the road from The Laurels is The Court House, which the Trust secured from Donegal County Council earlier this year.
Plans for The Court House which were developed earlier this year by CHL Consulting and John McLaughlin Architects include a vibrant, dynamic and creative interpretative visitor attraction, containing elements of the Friel archive – displays of photographs, letters, theatrical memorabilia, as well as Brian’s reading library and a performance space.
Phase One is now complete at the cost of €110,000. The projected cost of the entire project will be in the region of €5 million.
Phase two has now been launched and with the support of a gofundme campaign will provide the vital next step for the completion of the entire project
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