Kate Mundy
Kate is the mother figure for the Mundy family. She is the oldest, and the strictest as well. She adheres completely to the Catholic church and consequently disapproves of a number of the things that go on within her own family. She likes being a school teacher and when she is let go due to low student numbers she does not believe that this is the real reason for her termination - she is positive that her brother's "native" behavior as a missionary in Uganda has cast her in a bad light because she is his relative. She also disapproves of what she sees as the Pagan festival of Lughnasa.
She is not all strictness and propriety though; Michael narrates that she has a softer and more sentimental side although she hides it. When Father Jack passes away she is almost inconsolable.
Maggie Mundy
Maggie does not work outside the home and is the official homemaker of the family. She is the cheeky, chipper diffuser-of-tension within the family, always on hand with a joke or a quip whenever there is friction. She is close with Kate but always adept at taking her down a peg or two when she becomes to dictatorial. Her fun-loving personality does hide sadness beneath; she once had dreams that she never got to achieve, and although she has long since put them away, she has never really forgotten them.
Christina Mundy
Michael's mother never married his father, Gerry, but the two keep in contact, Gerry periodically offering a proposal that is barely worth taking seriously, and Chris welcoming him home whenever he shows up without warning. She is the youngest Mundy girl and is a stay at home mom. Christina's emotions depend on Gerry's schedule, in that when he leaves she is plunged into a depression, but in a little while she becomes like a child waiting for Santa Claus to arrive as she is filled with anticipation for his next unscheduled visit.
Chris does not like others to assume the role of raising Michael and feels that Kate is apt to buy the right to have a say in his upbringing by purchasing toys for him.
Rose Mundy
Although Rose is not the youngest sister she always seems so, because of her developmental and learning disabilities. She is alarmingly easy to prey on and is easily swept off her feet by nefarious characters, specifically Danny Bradley, who is married, but whom Rose believes to have fallen madly in love with her. Rose is a gifted crafter and knits gloves to sell in town. Her life is sad and at its end she dies alone, in a hospice for the destitute in London, in the 1950s.
Agnes Mundy
Agnes is extremely close with her sister Rose, with whom she knits gloves to sell in town. She helps Maggie with household chores and errands. However, things start to take a downward turn for Agnes when the knitting factory opens and kills her hand made gloves enterprise. Imbued with a sense of duty when it comes to Rose, she goes to London with her but the two are somehow separated and she perishes in 1950.
Michael Evans
Michael is the protagonist of the story and its narrator. Everything that happens is seen from his perspective both as a child and as the adult he is now. He does not appear onstage as a child but is constantly referred to by the other characters so that his presence is acknowledged throughout. Michael is raised surrounded by love; although his father is largely absent, his aunts all adore him and shower him with affection.
Gerry Evans
An absent father and salesman, Gerry is shiftless in Kate's eyes because he is never there for his son and when he does visit it is never announced beforehand but more like a handy stop on his salesman route. When he is at the cottage, he is gentle and kind and affectionate towards Christina. He loves his freedom and seems unlikely to settle down; in fact, quite the contrary. Having no views whatsoever about the Spanish Civil War or the issues at its core, he nonetheless decides to join the International Brigade to fight Franco in Spain because he is bored with selling gramophones and craves a new adventure. Although he is not killed in the fighting in Spain he is injured, not in action but by falling off a motorbike.
Being constantly on the road also enables Gerry to have a family that Christina knows nothing about. He is married, with two sons, one of whom contacts Michael after Gerry's death, having learned about the existence of his Irish half brother after his father's passing.
Father Jack Mundy
Jack is in his late fifties and has been working as a missionary in Uganda for the past twenty five years. Before this he was a Catholic chaplain in the British army during World War I, serving in East Africa, which inspired him enough to make him want to return when the war was over. In Donegal he is held in high regard because he is working in a leper colony, but when he returns suddenly and with little warning there is speculation that something untoward might have gone on. Jack's faith has been lost a little and he has an appreciation for the pagan faiths of the people he encountered in Uganda. This disturbs Kate, as the reputation of the family is far more of a priority for her than its happiness.
Although Jack has suffered enormously because of his malaria, it is not ultimately this which kills him; he dies of a heart attack soon after the end of the events shown in the play.
