Dancing at Lughnasa

Dancing at Lughnasa Summary | Act 1 Summary

Michael Evans narrates the story of his childhood spent growing up in Ballybeg, a small town in County Donegal in northern Ireland. The tale begins in the summer of 1936, when he is eight years old. Michael is the illegitimate son of Chris Mundy and Gerry Evans, a ne'er-do-well from Wales. Chris and her son live with her four sisters Kate, Agnes, Maggie, and Rose, and her brother, Jack, a Catholic priest.

Kate is a schoolteacher and the wage earner for the family. Agnes knits gloves to bring in extra money. Rose, who is slightly retarded, helps around the house and seems to be especially attached to Agnes. Maggie tends to the chickens and prepares meals.

Father Jack had a significant career as chaplain to the British forces in East Africa and then stayed on in Uganda to work as a missionary. He has been returned home to Ballybeg, supposedly because he is sick with malaria. The real reason he has been brought home is that, instead of converting the natives to Christianity, he has been converted to their paganism. He is disgraced in the Church and the community, which previously had lionized him. He has also disgraced his family, and they are embarrassed and humiliated. Previously, his heroic image had redeemed the family somewhat from the stigma of Michael's illegitimate birth.

Lughnasa is a Celtic pagan harvest festival that has been adopted by and adapted to the Catholic Church. Along with other annual celebrations, it helps define the calendar of the village. Lughnasa is originally a tribute to the Celtic god, Lugh.

The sisters have acquired a wireless radio, which they have named Marconi. This radio plays only intermittently, because the battery expires quickly, and the wireless set has some undefined mechanical problems. When the radio works, wild Irish music streams from it, and the sisters dance with abandon.

Kate is not only the wage earner, but also the voice of reason and restraint in the family. There is much tension between the desire to abandon moral, emotional and physical restraints and adherence to social proprieties and Catholic standards of behavior. The agitation is clearly sexual in nature, as the sisters live celibate lives, but it is also religious.

Gerry Evans, Michael's father, turns up unexpectedly from time to time, bragging about a new job and making unfulfilled promises of a bicycle for Michael.

Kate spoils Michael with gifts she can ill-afford and demonstrates devotion, love, and affection for the child, although she disapproves of his father and the nature of his birth. Maggie, on the other hand, teases him and picks at him. We see little in the story regarding the feelings of other characters for Michael.

Michael, for his part, occupies himself by making kites. When his father visits and dances with his mother to the music from the radio, he hides behind a tree and watches.