Dramaturgical Packet.
The Festival of Lughnasa, (pronounced Loo-nah-sah), is a pagan harvest ritual which in ancient Ireland marked the beginning of the harvest, and was one of four great annual celebrations. In ancient times, the sacrifice of cattle was held to please the god Lugh, god of sun, grain harvest, and many skills of craftsmanship. The essential point of celebrating Lughnasa was to honor the beginning of the harvest, now associated with the potato crop, but originally with the harvest of the first grain. Families of farmers would have a festive family meal, and others around the towns would engage in berry picking, sports, courting, and merry-making, such as dancing and drinking. Many of these folks gathered by lakes, riverbanks, streams, and on hillsides. The swimming of horses and cattle was common. Since the raiding of Ireland by the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century, Lughnasa festivals have been Christianized, keeping sacrifice out of festivals.(Chaney)
The Pagan God Lugh
in Ancient Ireland
(Photo of Lugh from Celtic Mthys and Legends by Charles Squire)
According to ancient myth, Lugh holds a harvest fair in honor of his foster mother, Tailtiu. “This day became August 1, and that date ties in with the first grain harvest in agricultural societies in the Northern Hemisphere. In fact, in Irish Gaelic, the word for August is lunasa. Lugh is honored with corn, grains, bread, and other symbols of the harvest.”(Wigington). This became a holiday harvest festival throughout Ireland called Lughnasadh, (pronounced Loo-na-sa) (Wigington). “Today Lugh is still honored at the time of harvest, not only as a god of grain but also as a god of late summer storms. Even today, in Ireland many people celebrate Lughnasadh with dancing, song, and bonfires. The Catholic church also has set this date aside for a ritual blessing” (Wigington). This Pagan god ties in well with the story of Dancing at Lughnasa. Michael Mundy, the narrator and young boy in the play, begins the play by recalling memories of the summer of 1936 when he was seven. He introduces the festival of Lughnasa by speaking of his very strict, Catholic family’s new wireless set:
“And because it arrived as August was about to begin, my Aunt Maggie—she was the joker of the family—she suggested we give it a name. She wanted to call it Lugh after the old Celtic God of the Harvest. Because in the old days August the First was La Lughnasa, the feast day of the pagan god, Lugh; and the days and weeks of harvesting that followed were called the Festival of Lughnasa. But Aunt Kate—she was a national schoolteacher and a very proper woman—she said it would be sinful to christen an inanimate object with any kind of name, not to talk of a pagan god. So we just called it Marconi because that was the name emblazoned on the set.” (Walsh)
Friel establishes one of his favorite themes: “narrow, puritanical Irish Catholicism versus an older 'paganism', loosely defined.” (Walsh)