Translations

            The plays "Translations" and "The Playboy of the Western World" explore themes of oppression and the interaction of the Irish with figures of authority. Their methodologies are different, but each play deals with the consequences of vigilante justice and the rejection of royally imposed codes of law. In each play there is an underlying idea that the law, and those who enforce it, cannot and ought not to be trusted.
             Friel's masterpiece "Translations" chronicles a 19th century military operation involving the renaming of towns, boroughs, rivers, streams, roads and practically anything in the whole of the nation that has an Irish name. Throughout the play we are made to think that the purpose of the operation is simply for the English to have an easier way to refer to places in Ireland. This is what Owen thinks. However Doalty and Bridget know not to trust the British. They sabotage them at every opportunity. Doalty describes his efforts to thwart the English surveyors. "Anyway, every time they'd stick one of these poles into the ground and move across the bog, I'd creep up and shift it twenty or thirty paces to the side They'd come back and stare at it and look at their calculations and stare at it again and scratch their heads" (Act 1, p.17). .
             This doesn't seem like much, a nuisance at best. But as Manus points out it's, "a gesture just to indicate a presence" (Act 1, p.18). A presence. Every resistance of every oppressive government has started out as a presence, a simple way of reminding the oppressor that if they let their guard down, they'll pay. In light of the resistance that exists, it's no surprise that Yolland vanishes, presumably dead at the hand of the Donnelly twins or someone close to them. He is vulnerable and weak. To Irish resistors like Bridget and Doalty he is the enemy, whether or not he is a nice guy. Naturally you go after the weakest among the enemy first.