explore opposing points of view about the Troubles.

Miss Gilchrist
‘‘Prim and proper’’ Miss Gilchrist is not a regular inhabitant of the lodging house. An acquaintance of Mr. Mulleady’s, she appears with him after the two of them have been making ‘‘disgusting . . . noises’’ in their room together for three hours. Miss Gilchrist masquerades as an evangelical, tract-carrying Christian, but she is apparently not pure enough to resist an occasional fall from grace. In Act Two she and Mr. Mulleady sing songs in celebration of King and Country, but her alliance with him is torn asunder when he takes up with Rio Rita and Princess Grace.

Princess Grace
Princess Grace is a black sailor who is Rio Rita’s boyfriend. At the play’s end, he colludes with his boyfriend and Mulleady and betrays Pat and Monsewer.

IRA Officer
The IRA Officer is a schoolmaster in his working hours and a tough man in his free time. His uptight bureaucratic attitude to the provisioning and securing of the hostage reflects his schoolmaster background. Behan describes him as a ‘‘thin-faced fanatic.’’ He shares with Miss Gilchrist a penchant for pious posturing. Pat dislikes his absolute humorlessness.

Kate
Kate is the pianist who accompanies the cast members when they sing.

Monsewer
Monsewer, who is somewhat mentally distracted, is an ‘‘Anglo-Irishman’’ who ‘‘converted’’ to the Irish cause during the First World War. He fought for the IRA during the Easter Uprising ‘‘like a true Irish hero’’ and learned Irish Gaelic, believing that ‘‘at a time like this, we should refuse to use the English language altogether.’’ To him, English is the language of the oppressing nation. He is fond of parading on-stage, playing his bagpipes and ordering the brothel inhabitants to form a marching line. Monsewer’s character allows Brehan to poke fun at the Anglo-Irish and their penchant for cultural nationalism, but it also allows him to examine Irish identity in general.

Mr. Mulleady
Mulleady is described in the play as a ‘‘decaying Civil Servant,’’ and as such he is part of the small group of lodging house inhabitants who think of themselves as ‘‘genteel’’ (part of the lowermiddle class who aspire to the values and manners of the upper class). Mulleady carries on with an equally hypocritical partner, Miss Gilchrist, and the two of them band together in Act Two to sing songs that celebrate their pro-English and pro-monarchical values. However, at the play’s end, after he has informed upon Pat and Monsewer and invaded the house, he reveals himself to be a secret policeman.

Pat
Pat is the caretaker of the brothel and lodging house and an old comrade of Monsewer’s. He is a tough, sardonic middle-aged ‘‘ex-hero’’ who fought in the Easter Uprising and the Irish Civil War. Pat initially presents himself as being unmoved by Meg’s passionate proclamation that ‘‘the old cause is never dead,’’ but it soon becomes clear that he too nurses a sentimental longing for the old days of the Easter Uprising. Pat is contemptuous of the New IRA, believing them to be bureaucratic and humorless.

Pat is present on stage for most of the play, and his comments about the Irish Republic are the linchpin of Behan’s exploration of Irish nationalism. Pat’s past service, and his skepticism about the IRA then and now, allow Behan to represent a nontraditional perspective of the older generation of nationalists. This serves as a contrast to Mulleady’s fool-hardy romanticism and the Officer’s hard-nosed Puritanism. Pat also operates as the organizer of much of the action: pushing characters off stage or calling them on.

Rio Rita
Rio Rita is a homosexual navy man. Flamboyant and witty, he spends much of his time on stage flirting with his boyfriend, Princess Grace, or avoiding paying the rent he owes Pat. At the play’s end, Rio Rita joins forces with Mulleady and betrays Pat and Monsewer to the police.

Ropeen
Ropeen is an older prostitute with pro-British sympathies who works in the brothel.

Russian Sailor
The Russian Sailor, who is Colette’s customer, is actually a police spy.

Teresa
Teresa is Pat and Meg’s maid servant. An orphan, she is nineteen years of age and comes from the country, where she was educated in a strict Catholic convent. She had just one other job before coming to Dublin but had to leave because ‘‘there was a clerical student in the house.’’ She is out of her league in the lodging house and brothel, but she demonstrates her good heart by comforting Leslie. Their brief involvement represents the romanticism of Irish nationalism’s blood sacrifice mythology. After Leslie is shot, Teresa mourns him and promises never to ‘‘forget you . . . till the end of time.’’

Volunteer
The inexperienced volunteer works as a ‘‘railway ticket-collector’’ to earn money and volunteers for the Cause when he can. His incompetency and soft-heartedness is a neat foil to his leader’s bureaucratic attitude and toughness, and he is utterly unable to stop people visiting Leslie.

Leslie Williams
Leslie appears at the end of Act One, although his impending presence dominates much of the action prior to his appearance. Orphaned Leslie is a young British solider who is completely unprepared for his kidnaping and is genuinely ignorant about the politics of the country in which he is fighting. Initially, he does not seem to take his situation seriously: sex, cigarettes, and a ‘‘nice cuppa tea’’ are his main interests. However, when he learns that the Belfast prisoner will not be reprieved, he realizes he stands a good chance of being shot in retribution, and his attitude darkens. He is shot at the end of the play. His death can be interpreted in a number of ways: as evidence of British bungling, as an innocent slaughtered unjustly in a conflict about which he knew nothing, or as a dramatically just ‘‘eye for an eye.’’