On Saturday night Lilian and I went with Jackie and Nicola Whyte to see "Dancing at Lughnasa" in the Lyric in Belfast. Fabulous set and excellent production. (Lughnasa is an ancient Celtic festival to celebrate the harvest). I quote from a synopsis of the play.
"It is true today, just most certainly as it was true in the 1930's of Dancing at Lughnasa, that Ireland exists at a wistful - and sometimes mad - crossroads. One makes a seasonal pilgrimage to pagan festivals after Sunday church services. Voices are raised in earthy airs, just as they join with others in hymns. Morning prayers bless homes, sanctified with a light rain of holy water; while during harvest nights in the forest, blazing fires stoke an abandon to Lugh, an ancient god of Light. It puts the Irish on a unique temporal plane - neither living purely in the past, nor absolutely in the present - but in both at the same time. This poetic alchemy of time occasionally creates a stubborness, but often a selflessness, an art of life and a resilient grace; but mostly a capacity for hope."