This article, part of a larger research work that resulted in a Professorship
Thesis, presents a survey and evaluation of the early reception of one of
Brian Friel’s first plays: Philadelphia, Here I Come! (1964). The article also
explores the question of emigration from Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s,
considering British legislation on the matter, and comments on the eventual
influence such issue, among other factors, may have had on criticism
about the performance of the play at the time.
