It is 1936 and harvest time in County Donegal. In a house just outside the village of Ballybeg live the five Mundy sisters, barely making ends meet, their ages ranging from 26 up to 40. The two male members of the household are brother Jack, a missionary priest, repatriated from Africa by his superiors after 25 years, and the 7-year-old child of the youngest sister.

In depicting two days in the life of this menage, Brian Friel evokes not simply the interior landscape of a group of human beings trapped in their domestic situation, but the wider landscape, interior and exterior, Christian and pagan, of which they are nonetheless a part.