should grow in joyousness

This note towards Dancing at Lughnasa (1990) dated 30 May 1989 contains a phrase that performance-maker Robbie Blake adapted for use as a direction for their piece ‘Running the Ending’. Here, Friel was alluding to a combination of the liberating qualities of dance and Fr. Jack’s paganism that allows the Mundy sisters to escape from the social, political, spiritual, and economic constraints that dominate their lives. Consequently, he felt that the play ‘should grow in joyousness’ rather than embracing a mood that anticipated the characters’ altogether gloomier ends.