Conor McPherson effectively conveys the fragility of bonds between human beings and the difficulty of constructing community when old ways of life are in decline.

In The Weir, the playwright uses the medium of water and the barriers that contain it both literally and metaphorically to explore changes in Irish society. Ideas about class, gender, and age are developed through differences among the characters, even as they all come together to drink in a village pub.

While Valerie is the only female character—and she is an outsider—it is she who brings the four male characters together and thus offers hope of continuity (if not actual improvement) in the village's trajectory. As the men face the reality of death's finality, rather than hide behind entertaining fantasies about ghosts, the author suggests some ways that the traditional past has held back meaningful progress.

The older and younger generations of men alternatingly conflict with and support each other; Jack provides the mainstay of the community. A regular in the pub—in part because he is a single man past middle age—he lends a sympathetic, paternal ear to the younger men.

Brendan finds it meaningful to keep the pub in his family's house after his sisters have left, and he holds down the fort. Despite his youth, he values the old ways and the farm that supported them for generations. The modernization of the community brings pressure to sell, but Brendan is not lured by the commercialism to which the sisters have succumbed.

Similarly, Finbar's success generates resentment more than envy, as he has moved away from town and returns sporadically—generally to bring city folk who seem to romanticize rural life. The local men assume that Valerie is one such person, and the men also stereotype her as a single woman who would condone involvement with the married Finbar.

While the men speak about Valerie before she enters, the audience only hears from her what she tells the men. Whatever her private thought processes were, the story she shares with these new companions somehow touches a chord in them, especially Jack. McPherson suggests that both gender relations and urban-rural interactions must change if rural Irish society is to find a way forward.