Characters Discussed
Kate Mundy
Kate Mundy, a parochial grade-school teacher in Ballybeg (Irish for “small town”), County Donegal. She is the only steady wage earner in the family, which includes her fallen-priest brother, Jack; her four younger sisters, all unmarried; and her illegitimate nephew, seven-year-old Michael. She is the stabilizing economic and social force holding the family together. Her dismissal from her teaching position because of Father Jack’s heterodoxy is another straw added to the weight of community dissolution. She winds up tutoring privately in the family of Austin Morgan, the proprietor of a local store. She was once associated with him romantically, but he married a younger woman. Kate is a silent, solo dancer.
Maggie Mundy
Maggie Mundy, Kate’s sister, who is responsible for the outside work and the housekeeping chores in the family. Her bootlaces are always untied, reflecting her openness. She plays with and encourages young Michael with his kites, and she plays imaginative language games with him. She is a singer and a “dervish” dancer, full of exuberant energy. When the family breaks up, she carries on, adding her absent sisters’ tasks to hers, pretending to believe that nothing has changed.
Agnes Mundy
Agnes Mundy and
Rose Mundy
Rose Mundy, Kate’s sisters. They have a glove-knitting contract that is taken away from them. Agnes, the best of the dancers, looks out for her sister Rose, who is “simple.” The naïve Rose’s date with the married Danny Bradley at a pagan Lughnasa (pronounced lew-na-sah) gathering in the hills terrifies the protective sister. When income from their knitting disappears, the pair go to England, where for more than twenty years they do menial jobs. Agnes dies of exposure by the Thames, and Rose dies in a hospice for the destitute.
Chris Mundy
Chris Mundy, Michael’s single mother. He, just started in school, has been her primary responsibility because his absent, insouciant father’s visits have been sporadic. The youngest of the sisters by at least six years, she is the only one still vain about her physical appearance. Chris loves dancing and dances beautifully with Gerry, but she knows he would be unreliable as a husband and refuses to agree to marry him. Such a decision is a courageous one in such a traditional society. After the dissolution of the family, she works the rest of her life in the knitting factory, hating every day of it. She never learns, the adult Michael says, of Gerry’s marriage and children in Wales.
Gerry Evans
Gerry Evans, Michael’s father, a slick verbalizer, flatterer, con man, unsuccessful itinerant gramophone salesman, and former dancing teacher. His involvement in the Spanish Civil War is a comedy of errors; his war wound is suffered in a fall from his motorcycle. He can, however, always make Chris laugh. After three years, his visits to Ballybeg and his promises cease. About twenty years later, in the mid-1950’s, he dies in Wales among his new family members.
Jack Mundy
Jack Mundy, the only son and eldest in the family. He is an ordained Catholic priest who has returned home, terminally ill, from a mission among lepers in Uganda. Apart from a brief stint as a chaplain in the British army, the ceremonial uniform from which he has kept, all of his overseas time has been spent among native Africans. He has evidently misplaced his Christian mission and become something of a convert to an African religion. He endorses “love children”—the more the better—and sacrifices Rose’s pet rooster. He has only a year to live and try to integrate his African dance experience and his own “distinctive spiritual search,” as Kate...
(This entire section contains 660 words.)
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puts it, into the unreceptive world of Ballybeg.
Michael
Michael, the invisible focus of several scenes with the women. Twenty-five years later, he speaks his lines as a child and comments neutrally, as an adult who got out, on the present and future of the family ensemble.
Characters
Last Updated September 20, 2024.
Gerry Evans
Gerry Evans, age thirty-three, is the father of Michael, who was born out of
wedlock to Chris. Gerry and Chris never married, and he abandoned her and their
son years ago. He reappears unexpectedly every year or so, and despite her
better judgment, Chris falls for him again each time. However, Gerry is
unreliable and has a new career idea with each visit. He eventually leaves to
fight in Spain, where he sustains a motorbike injury that leaves him limping.
Although he continues to visit Chris and Michael sporadically, he vanishes
around the onset of World War II. After Gerry's death, Michael discovers that
his father had a wife and three children in Wales all those years, without
Chris ever knowing.
Uncle Jack
See Jack Mundy
Agnes Mundy
Agnes, aged thirty-five, is the middle sister among the five siblings, and she
knits mittens to support the family. When a local knitting factory renders
their home knitting efforts obsolete, Agnes and her sister Rose eventually
leave the family home and never return. Twenty-five years later, Michael finds
Rose and Agnes in London, where Agnes has passed away, and Rose soon dies in a
hospice for the destitute.
Chris Mundy
Chris, twenty-six, is the youngest of the five sisters. Her son Michael was
born out of wedlock, a love child with Gerry Evans. When Gerry returns after
more than a year away, he charms Chris once more, despite her sisters'
disapproval. Gerry jokes with her, makes her laugh, and often dances with her.
Chris is repeatedly taken in by Gerry's unreliable promises, believing him when
he says he will return soon and that he has bought a bicycle for Michael. Three
weeks later, Gerry does come back briefly, and he and Chris enjoy a brief
rekindling of their romance before he departs for military work in Spain. Chris
never learns about Gerry's legitimate family in Wales.
Jack Mundy
Jack, aged fifty-three, also known as Uncle Jack by Michael, is the brother of
the five women and Michael's uncle. He spent twenty-five years as a missionary
priest in a Ugandan leper colony and has recently returned to Ireland,
suffering from malaria. Jack was dismissed from the priesthood for engaging in
local, non-Christian ceremonies and rituals in Uganda. Back in Ireland, he
appears both mentally disoriented and physically unwell. He struggles to
remember his sisters' names and has difficulty recalling English words, as he
predominantly spoke Swahili during his time in Uganda. Uncle Jack's character
underscores Friel's theme of paganism, as he often references Ugandan spiritual
practices and seems to have drifted from his Christian beliefs. Kate aids Uncle
Jack in regaining his strength through frequent long walks. Michael reveals in
a monologue near the play's conclusion that Jack died suddenly of a heart
attack within a year of his return to Ireland.
Kate Mundy
Kate, the eldest of the five sisters, is forty years old and was formerly a
schoolteacher. She is the most resistant to the changes happening around her,
particularly criticizing the "pagan" singing and dancing introduced into her
household by the radio.
Maggie Mundy
Maggie, aged thirty-eight, is the second oldest sister and serves as the cook
and housekeeper of their home. Michael describes Aunt Maggie as "the joker of
the family." She is the one who proposes naming the new wireless radio Lugh,
after the "old Celtic god of the Harvest."
Michael Mundy
Michael, as an adult, functions as the narrator, recounting the events of the
play through direct monologues to the audience. He nostalgically reminisces
about his childhood when he was seven years old. Michael is the illegitimate
son of Chris and Gerry, seeing his father only about once a year. In the
flashbacks, young Michael is primarily focused on making and painting a series
of kites. Toward the end of the play, his paintings are revealed to the
audience, displaying a series of faces with strong emotional expressions.
Rose Mundy
Rose, aged thirty-two, is the second youngest sister and supports the family by
knitting mittens. Rose is in love with Danny Bradley, a married man with three
children, and sneaks off for a boat ride with him one afternoon.