Kei tētahi wharekura i te papakāinga o Baile Beag, i tētahi hapori kōrero Airihi i te whaitua o Tonekāra i te pito o te marama o Ākuhata, i te tau 1833, ngā mahi o te whakaari nei. E hopuni mai ana i tētahi pārae tūtata tētahi wāhanga o te Kāhui Kaipūkaha a te Kīngi kātahi anō ka tae mai, ā, ko tā rātou mahi he whakaoti i te rūritanga whānui tuatahi. I te mahi hanga mahere whenua, i tuhia ngā ingoa wāhi Airihi ki te reo Ingarihi. E whakaatu mai ana a Brian Friel i te pānga o te mahi whakahaere noa iho nei ki te ahurea me te tangata i roto i tana titiro ki te pānga o tēnei mahi ki te ao o tētahi hunga iti. E whakanui ana ia i ngā tuakiri me ngā whanaungatanga i waenganui i taua hunga me te whakatakoto tahi i te kōrero whakaara whakaaro mō te hītori mō te Airihi me te Ingarihi.

‘It is not the literal past, the “facts” of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language,’ wrote Brian Friel (1929–2015). Indeed, there is no other literary text that embodies the complex relationship between language, identity, and power more directly than his play Translations, set in 1833. There is, however, another text that does: the founding document of Aotearoa, The Treaty of Waitangi, signed in 1840.

‘It is thus fitting that the story told in such a smart and smarting way by the great Irish playwright can now be read in te reo Māori. Hēmi Kelly, one of this country’s foremost translators, and Peter Ryan, the first Ambassador of Ireland to Aotearoa, deserve our whakawhetai and our whakamihi for guiding the waka of multilingual and multicultural understanding from the Atlantic to the Pacific.’

—Marco Sonzogni, New Zealand Centre for Literary Translation, Te Herenga Waka