Dancing at Lughnasa

Adult Michael Mundy reflects on a pivotal period in his life, when he was eight years old in the summer of 1936 in his hometown of Ballybeg in Donegal County, Ireland. Then, he lived on the family farm with his single, never married mother Christina, and his four maternal also never married aunts: strict, domineering schoolteacher Kate, brash, heavy smoking Maggie, sensitive Agnes, and slow-witted Rose, the latter two, who like Kate, earn income outside the farm in, like many women of the area, being provided local wool to knit gloves. The latter two also have a special bond with each other in being the ones requiring the most care. Outwardly, the arrival of two men, independent of each other, is the impetus for the changes in Michael's life. The first is his maternal uncle, Catholic priest Father Jack, who is home for the first time in twenty-five years after having been away doing missionary work in Africa, and thus is the first time Michael would have met him. The sisters, especially Kate, may or may not want to admit that Father Jack no longer has all his mental faculties, refusing to acknowledge such a mechanism for their own protection. And the second is Michael's biological father, Welshman Gerry Evans. While Gerry has come in and out of the Mundy and Christina's lives once every few years, Gerry and Christina who still do love each other in their own way, this visit marks Michael's earliest remembrance of his father. This visit also marks a potential turning point in Christina and Gerry's lives in it being specifically for him to tell her his immediate plans for the future. While Father Jack and Gerry are the physical manifestations, they act as symbols for the passage of time which makes it this pivotal moment for Michael and the Mundys as a collective.