Content Warning: This guide describes and analyzes the source text’s depiction of family conflict, physical fighting, and generational trauma.

Moran is ill, and his adult children, especially his daughters, want to help him get better. They devise a plan to reunite for Monaghan Day, the annual February fair in their hometown of Mohill, Ireland. Mona, Sheila, Maggie, Michael, and Luke now live far away, in Dublin or London. Only Mona, Sheila, and Maggie reunite to be with their father and stepmother, Rose.

Moran’s daughters remind him about the great times he used to have with his friend McQuaid on Monaghan Day, but Moran “resent[s] any dredging up of the past. He demand[s] that the continuing present he [feels] his life to be should not be shadowed or challenged” (3). McQuaid has been dead for a long time, and Moran remembers him as an alcoholic. Moran tells his daughters a little bit about his time with McQuaid during the Irish Civil War. He says that war is unglamorous, but at least it’s simple, unlike the rest of life.