The play opens during the morning hour in the Boyle family’s two-room tenement in Dublin, Ireland, in 1922. The two Boyle children, in their early 20s, begin the scene. Johnny is by the fire, and Mary is in front of the mirror. Mrs. Boyle, or Juno, returns from shopping. Juno questions the whereabouts of her husband (former sea captain) Jack Boyle, responding to his absence with “Oh, he’ll come in when he likes, struttin’ about the town like a paycock” (436). O’Casey has written a working-class Irish dialect for his characters; “paycock” means “peacock.”

Juno mentions that Mrs. Tancred’s, a neighbor’s, son has been killed in the Irish Civil War, a war that resulted from Ireland’s divided reaction to independence from British rule. Johnny does not want to hear about the death, having lost his own arm during the recent fighting and also having taken a bullet in the hip during the 1916 Easter Rising against the British in Dublin streets. Juno is about to make breakfast but is upset about Jack’s unemployment and carousing with his buddy Joxer Daly. The conversation topic changes to Mary’s union affiliation and her choice to go on strike. Mary explains her decision to her unconvinced mother,