SOURCE: Bonaccorso, Richard. “Back to ‘Foundry House’: Brian Friel and the Short Story.” The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies 17, no. 2 (December 1991): 72-7.

In the following essay, Bonaccorso deems “Foundry House” Friel's best-known story, and asserts that is one of his most impressive achievements “given its cultural interest, quiet intensity, and subtle characterization of its protagonist.”

Considering the emerging power of Brian Friel's plays since the mid-Sixties, one looks back to the stories (mostly published in A Saucer of Larks, 1962, and The Gold in the Sea, 1966) with fascination. A close reading reveals their considerable intrinsic value.

Though Friel's major critics have justly given greatest attention to the plays, there is agreement among some of the most thorough readers regarding the achievement of the stories. D. E. S. Maxwell deems that the “stories too retain within themselves a core of meaning that resists paraphrase” (47). Seamus Deane praises the achievement of...