Friday night in County Mayo. The echo of music fills the empty dancehall, the Ballroom of Romance. Bridie is out digging turf with her ageing crippled father. The oldest lads in town, Bowser Egan, Eyes Horgan and Tim Daly, are contemplating their Guinness and smokes, wondering about the female talent on offer that night. The hall fills up with the Romantic Jazz Band and Bridie finds out that the drummer Dano Ryan is lost to her: he's lodging with a widow woman. Friends try to console her, but it looks like the drunken, useless Bowser Egan is the only prospect to save her from eternal spinsterdom. His mother will die within two years, he promises. The oldest woman in the place, Madge Dowding, is left alone after failing to persuade Bowser to go for a drink with her. Bridie reluctantly agrees to let Bowser have a go at her in the field on the way home from the dance, her last.