Dancing At Lughnasa

“And when I remember the kitchen throbbing with the beat of Irish dance music beamed to us all the way from Dublin, and my mother and her sisters suddenly catching hands and dancing a spontaneous step-dance and laughing—screaming!—like excited schoolgirls, at the same time I see that forlorn figure of Father Jack shuffling from room to room searching for something but couldn’t remember what. And even though I was only a child of seven at the time I know I had a sense of unease, some awareness of a widening breach between what seemed to be and what was…” 

Continuing his opening monologue, Michael Evans establishes the tone of simultaneous nostalgia and unease that defines this memory play. The surreal—yet very real—images of Michael’s mother and sisters “screaming” and Father Jack “shuffling from room to room” evoke a tension between “what seemed to be and what was,” creating the sensation that these strange moments felt like “memories” even as they were occurring. The exploration of sensory memory continues to be a prominent theme throughout the play. 

“When I saw Uncle Jack for the first time the reason I was so shocked by his appearance was that I expected—well, I suppose, the hero from a schoolboy’s book…But if he was a hero to me, he was a hero and a saint to my mother and to my aunts.” 

Here, Michael’s monologue resumes in a fragmentary manner, recalling a photo of a young, healthy Jack in his army uniform that both he and the sisters uphold as a kind of icon. Michael notes that he was “shocked” by Jack’s appearance because the thin, malaria-sick individual that moves home from Uganda does not resemble the photo from twenty-five years ago. Michael’s reflection peformatively interrupts the remembered scene from 1936. This interruption is congruent with the way Jack’s arrival disrupts Michael’s romantic imagination. 

“I’m telling you—[Ballybeg’s] off its head—like a fever in the place. That’s the quinine. The doctor says it won’t cure malaria but it might help to contain it…” 

In this scene, Kate unpacks her shopping and tells her sisters about the people she’s seen while going around town. She disdains the town’s excitement for the pagan Festival of Lughnasa as a figurative “fever,” just as she unpacks the quinine for Jack’s literal fever. This moment suggests a comparison between Ballybeg’s Irish paganism and Jack’s Ugandan paganism. It also tellingly insinuates Kate’s role as a staunch Catholic who hopes to “contain” her family’s paganism.

“How many years has it been since we were at the harvest dance?—at any dance? And I don’t care how young they are, how drunk and dirty and sweaty they are. I want to dance, Kate. It’s the Festival of Lughnasa. I’m only thirty-five. I want to dance.” 

Here, Agnes protests against Kate’s dismissal of the Lughnasa dance. Between the desperation of Agnes’s tone—“I don’t care how young they are, how drunk and dirty and sweaty they are”—and the mention of her age, the viewer is led to consider this dance not as any regular celebration, but a final opportunity to experience romance.

“Do you want the whole countryside to be laughing at us?—woman of our years?—mature women, dancing? What’s come over you all? And this is Father Jack’s home—we must never forget that—ever. No, no, we’re going to no harvest dance.” 

Kate firmly prohibits going to the Lughnasa dance, fearing that it would lead her sisters away from their practical responsibilities as “mature women.” She also forebodingly declares that this is “Father Jack’s home,” suggesting that the dance would lead them astray from their duties in caring for him. More subjectively, this line can be read as a commitment to the Catholicism embodied by Jack’s iconic army photo, with the implication that “Father Jack’s home” is like a church in which his faith is practiced. This reading, of course, is highly ironic, given Michael’s revelation about the disparity between Jack’s photo and his current condition.

“The colours are beautiful…Trouble is—just one quick glimpse—that’s all you ever get. And if you miss that…” 

Maggie plays a game with young Michael wherein she pretends to release an imaginary bird from her hands. Her performance is so effective that young Michael believes he might have seen a bird. Maggie responds to his excitement with the following line, which suggests the aforementioned tension between “what seemed to be and what was.” It also evokes the sense of time—and beauty—passing the sisters by.

“You’ll buy it out of your glove money, will you? I thought what you and Rose earned knitting gloves was barely sufficient to clothe the pair of you.” 

Here, Kate simultaneously scolds her sisters for spending their meager earnings on non-essential items such as the Marconi radio while urging them not to throw out the malfunctioning radio, suggesting that this would be a waste. This moment also suggests Kate’s unspoken attachment to the radio and the “pagan” escapism she claims to oppose. 

“I wash every stitch of clothes you wear. I polish your shoes. I make your bed. We both do—Rose and I…What you have here, Kate, are two unpaid servants.” 

Agnes protests against Kate’s superior attitude, claiming she and Rose work hard and therefore have a right to spend their money for small pleasures such as the Marconi. On a deeper level, this line can also be read as an allegorical protestation of the pagan Irish against their Catholic rulers.

“Don’t be surprised! Everybody wants to dance.” 

With this line, Michael’s father—Gerry—confirms a rumor Christina heard about him teaching dance lessons. In keeping with Agnes’s earlier proclamation—“I want to dance!”—Gerry’s theory that “everybody wants to dance” speaks to more than dancing. He suggests—as Agnes does—that the desire for pleasure and romance is something universal, experienced by “everyone.”

“For God’s sake, would you look at that poor fool of a woman? (Pause.) Her whole face alters when she’s happy, doesn’t it? (Pause.) They dance so well together. They’re a beautiful couple.” 

In this moment, Kate watches from the cottage window as Gerry and Christina dance. She experiences a complex progression of emotions, transitioning from righteous Catholic disdain, to recognition of Christina’s joy, to admiration (and possible envy). It is important to note that Kate’s recognition of joy contains undertones of fear for the way Christina’s “whole face alters.” This line suggests not only pleasure, but a loss of control over one’s body and emotions, and Kate recurrently positions herself against such loss of control.  

“If you knew your prayers as well as you know the words of those aul pagan songs!”

Here, Kate resumes her critical stance against Maggie’s dancing and singing. With her contrast between “prayers” and “those aul pagan songs,” Kate re-establishes the dichotomy between Catholic self-control and pagan escapist pleasure. 

“You work hard at your job. You try to keep the home together. You perform your duties as best you can—because you believe in responsibilities and obligations and good order. And then suddenly, suddenly you realize that hair cracks are appearing everywhere; that control is slipping away; that the whole thing is so fragile it can’t be held up much longer. It’s all about to collapse, Maggie.” 

After oscillating between a conflicted admiration of Christina’s pleasure and a critical denouncement of pagan escapism, Kate prophetically reflects that neither position effects the course of reality, as their lives are “about to collapse.”

“It’s like a—a picture?—a camera-picture?—a photograph!—it’s like a photograph in my mind.” 

In this moment, Jack suddenly experiences a vivid memory from twenty-five years ago, and momentarily seems to understand who he is and where he is. The dramatic timing of this moment is significant, as Kate has just recently given up hope and announced that “It’s all about to collapse.” 

“But she was wrong about my father…Because he did come back in a couple of weeks as he said he would. And although my mother and he didn’t go through a conventional form of marriage, once more they danced together, witnessed by the unseen sisters. And this time it was a dance without music; just there, in ritual circles round and round that square…No singing, no melody, no words. Only the swish and whisper of their feet across the grass.” 

In his monologue at the end of Act One, adult Michael reflects on the wordless dance of his parents and how this dance was a kind of unconventional marriage. This imagination of a language without words—and a kind of social code that extends beyond language—is readdressed in the final lines of the play.

“‘O ruddier than the cherry, O sweeter than the berry, O nymph more bright, Than moonshine bright, Like kidlings blithe and merry.’ (Laughs) Where on earth did that come from? You see, Kate, it’s all coming back to me.” 

Jack recalls English words and phrases more readily now, as is evidenced by this moment wherein an English quote suddenly “comes back” to him. Though this recollection seems hopeful on the surface, Friel suggests that its implications are more complex than Jack realizes. Wondering “where…that [came] from,” Jack guesses that the line is from a comic opera by Gilbert and Sullivan, a pair of British Victorian librettists who could be interpreted, herein, as stand-ins for English composure. The line, however, is actually from the opera Acis and Galatea with music by George Handel and lyrics by John Gay. As with Dancing at Lughnasa, Acis and Galatea is notably divided into a hope-filled first act and a melancholier second act. The unquoted (unrecalled) lines of the song Jack references are equally telling of the play’s burgeoning atmosphere: “No lily has such lustre; Yet hard to tame, As raging flame, And fierce as storms that bluster!” In summation, the unspoken undertones of this moment reflect Kate’s early anxieties about controlling the household’s pagan tensions, suggesting that, indeed, “It’s all about to collapse.” 

“He’s changed, Maggie…He’s not our Jack at all. And it’s what he’s changed into that frightens me.” 

After Jack’s recollections segue into explanations of pagan Ugandan rituals, Kate expresses her anxiety that Jack has “changed.” This moment confirms the underlying tension of the previous moment, suggesting that, like the unsung “raging flame” of Lughnasa, Jack’s pagan passions are beyond her control. 

“The Industrial Revolution had finally caught up with Ballybeg.” 

In this moment, adult Michael explains that Agnes and Rose lost their livelihood as home-based glove makers when a glove factory was built nearby. He describes this event not only as an inevitable development, but a kind of delayed reckoning for this small town that is behind the times. In so doing, he suggests the especially drastic effect of world-wide changes on communities such as Ballybeg that retain—and in many senses rely on—their old traditions. 

“The scraps of information I gathered about their lives during those missing years were too sparse to be coherent.” 

This line—taken from one of adult Michael’s monologues near the end of the play—is important in that it draws attention to our narrator’s knowledge gaps. Friel leads the viewer to understand that memory, storytelling, and all other assemblages of knowledge are fragmented by their very nature, often “too sparse to be coherent.” 

“He never lost his determination to return to Uganda and he still talked passionately about his life with the lepers there. And each new anecdote contained more revelations. And each new revelation shocked my poor Aunt Kate. Until finally she hit on a phrase that appeased her: ‘his own distinctive spiritual search.’” 

Michael’s monologue continues to address the development of Kate’s relationship with this new and “changed” Jack. Her assessment of Jack’s spirituality is left open to the viewer’s interpretation, proffering a question of whether her perspective on religion has evolved, or if she’s simply doing whatever she can to normalize her brother’s behavior.

“I couldn’t promise four men but I should be able to get one husband for all of you.” 

Jack responds to Maggie’s whimsical questions about Ugandan life, illustrating that many of the pagan rituals, traditions, and social hierarchies in Africa are very similar to those they know in Ireland. When Maggie asks whether or not he could find all of the eligible sisters a husband there, he responds thus. The verity of his response is demonstrated as Gerry dances with all the present sisters, performing as “one husband for all” of them.

“‘In olden times a glimpse of a stocking/Was looked on as something shocking/But now—’” 

The lyrics of this song—sung by Gerry as he dances with the sisters—playfully demonstrates the change taking place in their lives. These lyrics insinuate that Kate’s Catholic control and composure will become harder and harder to maintain in a world where “a glimpse of a stocking” is no longer “shocking.” 

“Why is a gramophone like a parrot?…Because it…because it always…Because a parrot…God, I’ve forgotten!” 

This failed joke is attempted by Maggie in the final scene of the play. The joke is a response to Gerry’s comment that the artistic young Michael “isn’t going to end up selling gramophones” like he does. The joke is ironic on multiple levels because its punchline—which Maggie has forgotten—is that they both repeat the same thing over and over again, suggesting that Michael will in fact repeat the path of his father. After Maggie’s joke, the play’s characters also resume their original stances from the beginning of the play, repeating a version of the scene we have seen before. Her failed recollection of the punchline also comments on the fleeting nature of memory, how it often skips like a repeating record (or a malfunctioning Marconi radio). 

“In that memory atmosphere is more real than incident and everything is simultaneously actual and illusory. In memory, too, the air is nostalgic with the music of the thirties. It drifts in from somewhere far away—a mirage of sound—a dream music that is both heard and imagined; that seems both itself and its own echo…” 

In his final monologue, adult Michael continues Maggie’s suggestive thought line about the repetitive “echo” resonances of memory. This dreamily-phrased ending could be thought of as its own form of escapism, or a comment on the sensory experiences of hope, loss, and resignation.