Kate Mundy
Kate at 40 is the oldest of the five sisters and perceives herself to be the most responsible. She earns the only reliable wage in the Mundy household as a schoolteacher. She adopts the role of head of the household and feels she can direct the chastise her family for their behaviour but she is essentially kindhearted. She is the most fearful and resistant to the changes taking place around her, and is especially critical of the “pagan” singing and dancing that the radio has brought into her household.
Played by Penny Layden.
Maggie Mundy
Maggie, 38, is the second oldest of the five sisters, and works as the cook and housekeeper of their home but has no paid work. Michael describes his Aunt Maggie as “the joker of the family.” She is the one who suggests naming the new wireless radio Lugh, after the “old Celtic god of the Harvest.” She loves to dance, tell riddles, and tease and it is her energy and humour that often diffuses conflict between the sisters. She secretly has her own dreams and disappointments, evident from her sudden quietness when she hears of the success of her old friend and when she reminisces about past love. She is the only sister to call Kate “Kitty,” suggesting that she is not only closest with Kate, but that she is somewhat of Kate’s equal in the household.
Played by Siobhan McSweeney.
Agnes Mundy
Agnes is the middle of the five sisters and earns some money knitting gloves to help support them. She has a passion and a talent for dance and is secretly infatuated with Gerry Evans, often jumping to his defence in family squabbles. She is particularly close to her younger sister Rose, fiercely protective of her and she connects and shares a love with her that seh does not share with the other sisters. After a new knitting factory make their home knitting obsolete Agnes and Rose leave the family home and never return. Agnes becomes an alcoholic and dies in London.
Played by Elaine Symons.
Rose Mundy
Rose, 32, is the second youngest of the sisters, and like Agnes, works knitting mittens to support the family. She has a learning disability and is gulliable and rather slow. She is in love with Danny Bradley, a married man with three children, with whom she sneaks off for a boat ride one afternoon. Her close bond with Agnes is evident throughout the play and it is with Agnes that she leaves the family home for England.
Played by Fiona O’Shaughnessy.
Christina Mundy
Chris, 26, is the youngest of the five sisters. She has a son, Michael, who was born out of wedlock, her love child with Gerry Evans. She has suffered the stigma of being an unmarried mother in a close Catholic community. When Gerry returns after more than a year’s absence, she is charmed by him again, despite her own awareness and her sister’s disapproval. Gerry transforms her, makes her laugh, and frequently breaks into a dance with her, but she is also jealous of his relationship with Agnes. When Gerry does return briefly, Chris enjoys a rejuvenation of their romance before he leaves for military work in Spain. Chris never learns of Gerry’s legitimate family in Wales.
Played by Claire Rafferty.
Jack Mundy
Jack is the oldest brother of the five women, and this uncle of Michael. He spent twenty-five years as missionary priest in a leper colony in Uganda, and has recently returned to Ireland, suffering from malaria. It transpires that Jack was asked to leave the mission for participating in local, non-Christian ceremonies and rituals in Uganda. In Ireland, he seems mentally confused, as well as physically ill. He cannot keep the names of his five sisters organised in his mind, and has trouble remembering English words, having spoken monstly Swahili during his years in Uganda. His strange behaviour and loss of intest in the Christian faith has lost him the respect his neighbours and community once held for him and he fantasizes about returning to the leper colony in Ryanga and to his house boy, “Okawa” who he sometimes confuses for his sisters. He is encouraged by Kate and helps reinvigorate his health with long walks. We discover that Jack dies suddenly of a heart attack within a year of returning to Ireland.
Played by Peter Gowen.
Michael Evans
Michael is ages seven during the action of the play and then as a young man, functions as a narrator and describes the events of that summer in 1936. He is the illegitimate child of Chris and Gerry, and only sees his father about twice a year. The child Michael in the flashbacks is primarilly intent on making and painting a series of kites; only toward the end of the play are his painting displayed to the audience, when they reveal a series of faces expressing strong emotions, implying paganism and a sense of freedom or the desire to escape. He does not physically appear as his child self but is voiced by the adult Michael in reminiscence. He is adored by each of his aunts and is mothered in different way by them all.
Played by Barry Ward.
Gerry Evans
Gerry Evans, 33, is Michael’s father. Gerry and Chris were never married and Gerry had abandoned her with their child years earlier. Gerry appears unexpectedly every year of so, and charms Christina each time. He is unreliable, and has a new idea for a career with each visit. There is evidently and attraction between him and Agnes. He leaves to fight in Spain, where he is injured in a motorbike accident that leaves him with a limp. We learn that he continues to visit Chris and Michael every year or so, but disappears around the time of World War II. After his death, Michael learns that his father had a waife and three children in Wales throughout all those years, unbeknownst to Chris.
Played by Daniel Hawksford.