Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa is a memory play, first staged in 1990, set in rural Ireland in the summer of 1936.
It tells the story of five unmarried sisters — the Mundys — whose fragile household is seen through the eyes of Michael, the young boy they are raising. He recalls a summer when his aunts’ lives were touched by change: the arrival of their missionary brother back from Africa, the stirrings of romance, and the pull of a new industrial age.
At its heart, the play is about survival, repression, and fleeting joy. The title comes from the pagan harvest festival of Lughnasa, and in one unforgettable scene, the sisters break into wild, wordless dance, their brief moment of freedom.
Friel captures the poetry of memory: love, laughter, hardship, and loss. Dancing at Lughnasa is both intimate family drama and a portrait of a world on the edge of transformation.