Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa: Screenplay

Dancing at Lughnasa is the story of five unmarried sisters in a remote Irish village before the outbreak of World War II.Together, they nurse their brother Jack, a priest recently returned from a 25-year absence, whose pagan leanings threaten to upturn their concept of faith. They also raise Michael, the illegitimate son of their youngest sister, Chris.As August closes and the festival of Lughnasa comes to an end, the sisters' isolated and protected world will either blossom or unravel in this luminous tale of transformation.Dancing at Lughnasa is "suffused with so much beauty, lyricism and heartache that it takes your breath away", wrote Edwin Wilson, while Clive Barnes of the New York Post declared the stage version "a wondrous work fit to be placed alongside the greatest in Irish drama". In the hands of Friel and McGuinness, this screen adaptation promises to move and delight.