The Lieutenant of Inishmore

Throughout the play, the murderous Padraic’s soft spot for his kitty is an ongoing joke, but it’s also part of a larger motif in which pets are endowed with more humanity and intrinsic value than humans. Padraic and Mairead are the two most fervent cat lovers in the play, but all the characters assign human traits to cats. According to Mairead, “every cat has its own separate personality, sure, not to mention its eyes and its miaow” (20). Davey describes Sir Roger as “a snooty little bitch” (20) and takes it personally when his sister’s cat destroys his comic books, claiming that the feline did it purposefully. Conversely Wee Thomas “would always say hello to you were you to see him sitting on a wall” (6). Cats are even granted a role in the nationalist cause, often identified as “Irish cats” (28) who deserve to be free in a free Ireland. Padraic has built up Wee Thomas in his mind as a fellow revolutionary who encourages him to throw bombs. Sir Roger is named for an iconic revolutionary who was martyred for Irish republicanism, and he is martyred himself by Padraic.