O'Casey's play was written in the early 1940s and examines life in the early 1910s. By contrast, John Ardagh's Ireland and the Irish: Portrait of a Changing Society (1994) examines how the Irish Republic has undergone a tremendous transformation in the last half of the twentieth century, from a mainly rural society to one that embraces the modern world. Although the writer addresses the conflicts in Northern Ireland, he is not limited by it and discusses a wide variety of topics—from life in the slums of Dublin to the massive success of the Irish rock band U2.

At one point in the play, O'Casey invokes images of historical Celtic heroes in an attempt to show that modern-day, oppressed Irish need to find strength in their heritage to win against their oppressors. In Thomas Cahill's How the Irish Saved Civilization (1995), the...