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In Sharon's Grave, Dinzie, a malevolent cripple, yearns for a hearth and home and schemes to claim the land of his young cousin, Trassie---as soon as her ailing father, Donal, dies. Dinzie, who arrives each night carried on the back of his brother Jack to see if "the old man has died yet", views property as his only means of securing a wife. Upon Donal's death, Dinzie intends to evict Trassie and send her to live in his parent's home---and to have Trassie's troubled brother Neelus (who is haunted daily by the ghosts of Sharon and Shiofra) institutionalized in the county home. It is through Neelus that we first hear and later see the ghosts that hover over the scene. As the opera proceeds, the plot and the fates of each of the characters become entwined with the centuries-old legend of Sharon.
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