Act I

Act I is set "on a warm day in early August, 1936," in the "home of the Mundy family, two miles outside the village of Ballybeg, County Donegal, Ireland." The play opens with a monologue by Michael, who introduces the play as a nostalgic memory of the summer when he was seven years old. The family of five sisters who raised him have just acquired their first wireless radio. The sisters, most of them in their thirties, include Kate, Maggie, Rose, Agnes, and Chris (Michael's mother). In addition to the arrival of the radio, Michael's Uncle Jack, who has been a missionary in a leper colony in Uganda for the past twenty-five years, has returned home. Michael explains in this opening monologue that he was a child born out of wedlock, and had only seen his father, Gerry Evans, a few times.

The action of the play...