On 6 January 1904, spinster sisters Kate and Julia Morkan and their unmarried niece, Mary Jane, host their annual Feast of Epiphany dinner party at their townhouse in Dublin, Ireland. Horse-drawn carriages arrive with guests on the snowy night. First to enter are three of Mary Jane’s music students, Miss Furlong, Miss O'Callaghan, and Miss Higgins, followed by young bachelors, Joseph Kerrigan and Raymond Bergin. Miss Furlong formally introduces them to Kate and her frail older sister, Julia. Kate’s favorite nephew, Gabriel Conroy, and his wife, Gretta, arrive, followed by a drunken Freddy Malins. Gabriel promptly escorts Freddy to the restroom to sober him up. To Kate’s consternation, Dan Brown, the group’s only Protestant, also arrives in a light state of inebriation. Before dinner, the guests dance, and Bartell D’Arcy, a “celebrated tenor,” waltzes with Gretta, as Gabriel exchanges glances with a young stranger, Molly Ivors. Meanwhile, Mrs. Malins finds her son Freddy drinking with Dan Brown, and berates him for not meeting her earlier, as she has just arrived from Scotland, where she lives with her daughter. As fellow guest, Mr. Grace, recites a Gaelic poem, a lament of lost love, Gretta’s eyes grow misty. Afterward, Kate introduces Gabriel to Molly Ivors. Dancing together, Molly, an Irish nationalist, chides Gabriel for writing at an English newspaper and not learning Gaelic. He declares that he is sick of Ireland. Julia entertains her guests by singing an operatic piece from her “concert days.” Despite her warbling voice, Freddy drunkenly gushes over her performance. Kate complains that the Pope ended her sister’s singing career in the church choir when he replaced women with boys. Molly Ivors is called away for a union meeting, as the guests are called to the table, where a sumptuous feast awaits. Conversation topics range from opera to morality, and Freddy reliably utters the wrong things. Despite his nerves, Gabriel gives a rousing dinner speech praising his aunts’ Irish hospitality. Later, as the party ends and guests begin to leave, Mrs. Malins asks Gabriel to look after Freddy when she returns to Scotland. Gabriel awakens Dan Brown in the coatroom and puts him in a carriage with the Malins. The remaining guests become still as D'Arcy sings “The Lass Of Aughrim,” and Gabriel watches his wife, Gretta, standing transfixed on the stairs. She is pensive in the carriage on the way to their hotel, dismissing Gabriel’s attempt to cheer her. In their room, Gretta rebuffs his urge to make love. When Gabriel asks about her behavior on the staircase, Gretta explains that she was reminded of a boy named Michael Furey who once sang “The Lass of Aughrim” in a pure tenor, on one of their country walks in County Galway. Gretta believes she is partly responsible for Michael’s death from consumption at age seventeen: On the snowy night she was to leave for a Dublin convent, the boy left his sick bed and stood outside her window to say goodbye, and died a week later. After Gretta cries herself to asleep, Gabriel is overcome with jealousy. Watching the snowfall outside, he thinks of his foolish party speech, and his Aunt Julia’s haggard appearance as she sang. He knows she will soon be dead, and imagines his aunt’s body laid out, himself dressed in black as he searches for the right words to recite. Gabriel realizes that his wife’s love for him is not as strong as he once thought, and wishes in turn that he felt a love as powerful as what Michael Furey seemed to feel for Gretta.