The Importance of music in ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’

JACK MUNDY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZwQ31TswVI&index=9&list=PLFL3hzMa77_p_7c6gIF5AH9c-kw_p6thL

Lyrics: O Ruddier Than The Cherry

Aria: O ruddier than the cherry, O sweeter than the berry, O nymph more bright than moonshine night, Like kidlings blithe and merry! Ripe as the melting cluster, No lily has such lustre; Yet hard to tame as raging flame, And fierce as storms that bluster!

(Lyrics written in italics are those mentioned in the play)

O nymph more bright than moonshine night,•Nymphs and faeries are a mentioned repeatedly throughout

Paganism.•This mirrors Jack’s shift from Catholicism to Paganism and/or pagan like religions.

The feeble god has stabbed me to the heart.•Relates to Jack being converted to the Pagan religion•His belief in God, has been ruptured by the horror of war and the experience of leprosy in Uganda