Summary
Act 1. The hedge-school at which the action takes place is located in a disused barn or a hay-shed or a byre. The room has old farming tools scattered around, as well as some chairs for pupils. Friel describes the room as "comfortless and dusty and functional."
Manus, the master's older son, who is in his late 20s or early 30s and is disabled, is teaching a girl named Sarah to speak, kneeling beside her while she sits on a low stool. He encourages her with enthusiasm, but Sarah has a bad speech defect. "When she wishes to communicate, she grunts and makes unintelligible nasal sounds," Friel writes.
Nearby, Jimmy Jack Cassie, a bachelor in his 60s known as "the Infant Prodigy," sits reading Homer in Greek. Friel writes, "For Jimmy the world of the gods and the ancient myths is as real and as immediate as everyday life in the townland of Baile Beag."
Manus leads Sarah through a speaking exercise, in spite of her resistance, and insists that their lesson is their "secret." He coaches her to say, "My name is Sarah." Manus is elated when she manages to say it, and hugs Sarah. Jimmy comes over to them, chuckling, and reads some of his Homer to Manus, who rushes to set up the chairs for the school. The passage he reads is about Athene turning Ulysses into an old man as a disguise. He reveals his own bald head and compares himself to Ulysses.
Jimmy laughingly talks about a beautiful girl in their community, Grania, who is in class with goddesses and "can't get fill of men." He tells Manus, "I was just thinking to myself last night: if you had the choosing between Athene and Artemis and Helen of Troy—all three of them Zeus' girls—imagine three powerful-looking daughters like that all in the one parish of Athens!" He says he would pick Athene and does an ecstatic salute that makes Jimmy and Sarah laugh.
Manus and Sarah look out the window waiting for Hugh, Manus' father. Sarah mimes that she thinks Hugh went from a christening in the morning to the pub. Hearing this, Manus resolves to teach the class himself and begins to put out chalkboards and other school supplies. Sarah takes out a bunch of flowers from under a patch of straw, as Jimmy continues to read his Homer aloud. Sarah gives the flowers to Manus, before running to her seat in embarrassment. He coaches her to say the word "flowers" and kisses the top of her head.
Suddenly, Maire, "a strong-minded, strong-bodied woman in her twenties with a head of curly hair" enters with a can of milk. "I saw you out at the hay," Manus says to Maire, but she ignores him and goes to Jimmy. They discuss the harvest and Maire says an English phrase, even though it is not her native language. Jimmy tells Maire that the only English word he knows is "bosom," and references the bosom of Diana, the Roman goddess.
As Manus gives Maire his bowl of milk, he apologizes for not coming over the previous night, and says that Biddy Hanna asked him to write a letter to her sister in Nova Scotia. He tells her that Biddy Hanna completely forgot who she was dictating to and referred to him as the schoolmaster's "lame" son. Maire laughs at this part, and tells Sarah that her father was "in great voice last night," which makes Sarah smile.
Maire then tells them that the English soldiers who are staying in tents nearby are going to come by to help with the hay the next day. Just then, Doalty and Bridget, both in their 20s, enter noisily. Doalty asks the group if they think he is drunk or sober. He then brags that when the Red Coats stick their surveyor poles in the ground and move across the pond, he moves it 20 or 30 paces to the side. This prank so confuses the Red Coats that they end up taking their surveyor poles apart.
Bridget suggests that he will be arrested and he grabs her around the waist playfully. Manus tells the students who have assembled that he will be leading the class, in the absence of his father, and Bridget combs her hair, while asking what Nellie Ruadh named her baby who was christened that morning. "Our Seamus says she was threatening she was going to call it after its father," Bridget says, implying that Nellie doesn't know who the father is.
Jimmy begins to translate some Virgil, a passage about growing corn, and suggests that they should grow corn instead of potatoes. Bridget taunts the old man about how out of touch he is, as Manus tries to get everyone's attention. He asks if the Donnelly twins are planning to come to class, but Doalty doesn't know. They begin to do their schoolwork, with Manus checking in on their progress.
As Manus talks to Maire, the students talk quietly to one another and look at one another's work. Maire tells Manus that her passage money came through last Friday, and that she's considering going to America, since she has 10 younger siblings and no man in the house. She asks Manus if he applied for the job at the new national school, and he tells her he didn't. Maire is frustrated with him, insisting that the job pays 56 pounds a year, but Manus says that he cannot, since his father applied for it also.
Analysis
The play is set in 19th century Ireland, and located in a very unique setting of this era—the hedge-school. A hedge-school was an illegal school that existed in 18th and 19th century Ireland for children from "non-conforming" sects of Christianity (Catholicism and Presbyterianism). Friel, a lifelong Irish nationalist, sets his play in an environment in which tensions between British sovereignty in Ireland and native Irish cultural pride were high, in order to stage the political tensions that have shaped Ireland's national identity.
He peoples the play with equally specific characters, all of whom he describes with great detail and affection. His stage directions describe the characters' backstories in great detail, in ways that allow us to empathize with their plights and understand the richness of their individuality. While the setting of the play is historical, a distant memory of Ireland's past, Friel writes with a thorough detail to make his play and its characters realistic and fully-formed.
The play is true to its title from the start. Indeed the very first scene depicts several people pursuing different kinds of translation, whether they are struggling to communicate with one another or they are simply reading some ancient poetry for sport. Manus is seeking to teach the speechless Sarah to speak, and delights at the fact that he is able to motivate her to say her own name. No sooner has this happened than Jimmy comes over with his own translation of the poet Homer, comparing himself to the hero, Ulysses.
The larger translation to which the title refers is the complete communication blockage between the English and the Irish. The characters we meet at the hedge-school are all Irish people who resent the infringement of the English-speaking Red Coats in the area. While the actors in the play speak English, this is actually a theatrical device, and in the reality of the play, they are all speaking Gaelic to one another, barely able to understand the English language of the foreign invaders. The distance between the English and the Irish national languages is a hostile and complicated one, in that the Irish people at the school resent the colonial entitlement of the English, and feel as though their national identity is being infringed upon. Thus, the "translation" of language in this context contains a great deal of political hostility and tension.
The central characters also share their own specific intimacies and tensions. For instance, Maire and Manus share a special, intimate relationship, but are often caught up in conflict with one another; Maire is considering a move to America because of the desperate conditions of her home life, and Manus feels unable to apply for a job at the new national school because it would put him in competition with his father. While none of these conflicts are out in the open, we catch murmurs in private conversation within the makeshift schoolhouse.
