Dancing at Lughnasa

This rural masterpiece is set two miles outside the village of Ballybeg, Co. Donegal, Ireland.  It is harvest time during the festival of Lugh, the pagan god of the sun, worshipped by the ancient Celts.  Over two warm days in August 1936, we see the five Mundy sisters (the youngest 26, the oldest 40) as remembered by Michael, the son of the youngest sister.  He shows them at work and at play, dancing and having fun with the new wireless on which the dance music of the thirties supplies a steady, if unreliable, diet of syncopated frivolity. 

But Michael knows old ways of life are at risk.  Timeless forces and the forces of time are stalking these sisters.  In his remembering, Michael keeps them safe for one last brief, affectionate moment before they are changed forever.