Dancing at Lughnasa

Lughnasadh was another ancient pagan festival which celebrated nature's bounty, whose resonances still live on today and were explored in Brian Friel’s play Dancing at Lughnasa. Lugh was the solar deity, the god of music and light and of the harvest, honoured at Summer’s end, when the crop was gathered in and thanks were given for the earth’s abundance. Remnants of this tradition still live within the ancestral memory of the people and in many communities there are still celebrations when the harvest is brought in. As Friel has commented ‘if you scratch the surface in Ireland, you find the pagan underneath’ and while these words may seem to be less true on the streets of Dublin than they are in the hills of Donegal, it is, in my view, only a question of how deep below the surface you have to scratch.

Blessings on your table!

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