This is a jolly and bizarre saga in modern times with a gallery of characters and props which Yeats, Synge and O´Casey consider typically Irish. The story is described with the bitter irony of love and with a pungent satirical grip, a bunch of people which succumb to superstition and spiritual isolation. This is a violent attack against the Catholic Church and the reactionary Irish peasant society. The Cock which has given the drama its name and around which the farcical action hovers is in the broadest sense a symbol of the irrational or the joy of life, which springs from the superstition and fear of life.
