Dancing at Lughnasa is a memory play. It is framed through the reflections of Michael, an adult who looks back on his childhood. Michael is seven in the summer of 1936, during the Celtic harvest festival.
Although the play is framed from Michael's memories, the Mundy sisters have memories in the play too. The sisters recall collective memories of their pasts. They discuss going to this year's harvest dance "just like we used to. All dressed up." The sisters spontaneously burst into dance, and we can consider what Brian Friel has said about this moment as it relates to collective memory. It is
“complete self-expression, dance as dream-memory, dance as substitute for language."
The sisters indulge in memory together through dance.
Jack's arrival brings up memories of their mother. Jack says that the memory of mother and baby Chris is "like a photograph in my mind." Photographs allow families to remember things together. The idea of a photograph is evoked through Friel's direction to begin and end the play with the characters in a tableau, or frozen picture.
The context of the play evokes collective memory. It is set during the Celtic harvest festival, an annual ritual in rural Ireland. The spreading of the radio is also a cultural event, as radios appearing in every household allowed people to listen to the same music at the same time, although they were in different homes. In a sense, the radio helps create a collective memory, and music can inspire the characters to remember their pasts.
Finally, when discussing the role of memory in this play, we should also consider that the story is semi-autobiographical. This gives another layer of memory, as it is inspired by Friel's memories.
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/stage/the-dark-heart-of-dancing-at-lughnasa-1.2332117
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