The play charts the tragic relations between Maire and Yolland, the local Irish girl and the well-meaning English soldier. He is misunderstood by the community, which feels threatened by his invasive presence. Indeed, the English language is wiping out any trace of Irish culture, changing the Ireland as a nation, and Yolland's job, anglicising each and every place-name, is contributing to this process. Thus the relationship between these two lovers is destined to fail, in a manner reminiscent of Romeo the Montague and Juliet the Capulet. If only Irish and English could get along, if only language were immaterial, we are made to think, these two clearly compatible beings could flourish together. Their closeness and love is shown to be so powerful as to often not even require a language to express them:

MAIRE [in Irish]: 'the grass must be wet. My feet are soaking'. YOLLAND [in English]: 'your feet must be wet. The grass is soaking.'

In the same scene, Yolland tells Maire how he y

Having a non confronting personality and his inability to accept responsibility or change, be it through the Anglicisation of his home land or a change in profession, he shelters behind his work with Sarah, which in the play brings him great pleasure and a scapegoat from confrontation with Maire and consequently his responsibilities.

earns to settle down in gay, simple and hospitable Ireland, and be with her "always". Maire too wants to be with him "always", but she on the contrary wants to be taken away from Ireland, a society in which she feels constrained and unfulfilled, this desire to leave Ireland puts strain on both her personal relationships and her attitude towards the rest of the community. However it is still remarkable that the two should be able to have an intuitive conversation at all; but there is a heavy irony in that Yolland and Maire are speaking at cross-purposes. Maire desperately wants to learn English, but the suggestion is that ambiguities such as these would remain, as Hugh wisely points out in accepting to teach her:

HUGH: 'I will provide you with the available words and the available grammar. But will that help you to interpret between privacies?'

Hugh, Yolland, Maire, and every other character are in fact devices used by Friel to explore the attitudes they embody, and although the play is set in Ireland at a specific moment in its history, there is a strong sense that it is meant to examine universal dilemmas. The prevalence of Latin and Greek in the text, together with the fact that the last speech concerns a tale from ancient history about the conquering of one civilisation by another, indicates that the situation depicted in the play is not unique.

Language has severe limitations, and is not a foolproof way of accessing a person's thoughts and meanings. Friel's suggestion is that, in a way, each of us speaks a language all of our own, and that true understanding of a person's thoughts is only achievable through a wise interpretation of that person's words. The theme of the differences between Irish and English is only a starting point for a wider questioning of language as a whole. The

Some common words found in the essay are:
English Roland, Latin Greek, Yolland Maire, Owen' Manus, Irish English, Manus Sarah, Ireland Maire, Indeed English, Maire Yolland, Brian Friel, english language, language culture identity, culture identity, cultural borders, language culture, irish english, mixing english, yolland maire, interpret privacies, maire yolland, value limitations,
Approximate Word count = 1441
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)