Director: Pat O’Connor Starring: Meryl Streep, Michael Gambon, Catherine McCormack, Kathy Burke, Sophie Thompson, Brid Brennan and Rhys Ifans. Plot: Adopted from the acclaimed play by Brian Friel. A young boy tells the story of growing up in a fatherless home with his unmarried mother and four spinster aunts in 1930’s Ireland. Each of the five women, different from the other in temperament and capability, is the emotional support system, although at times reluctantly, for each other, with the eldest assuming the role of a ‘somewhat meddling’ overseer. But then into this comes an elderly brother, a priest too senile to perform his clerical functions, who has “come home to die” after a lifetime in Africa; as well, there also arrives the boy’s father, riding up on a motorcycle, only to announce that he’s on his way to Spain to fight against Franco. Nevertheless, life goes on for the five sisters, although undeniably affected by the presence of the two men, they continue to cope as a close-knit unit… until something happens that disrupts the very fabric of that cohesiveness beyond repair. Locations: The small cottage was built in Coronation Plantation, which is near the Sally Gap in the Wicklow Mountains. Kippure Estate, on the way from the Sally Gap to Manor Kilbride, was used extensively as location in particular for the fire and dance scenes. The small village of Hollywood became the set for the local village. Road scenes were shot around the Sally Gap and the Wicklow Mountains. Luggala Estate and nearby Lough Dan, near Roundwood, were also used as locations. View Dancing at Lughnasa in a larger map