Cat Lover Irony
Padraic hates James because he deals drugs to Catholic school kids but when he hears that he is a cat lover he completely re-thinks his opinion of him, apologizes for torturing him and gives him his bus fare home. Finding out that someone loves their cat trumps everything in Padraic's book.
Wee Thomas is Alive
At the end of the play, a black cat walks into the house looking rather pleased with himself. Wee Thomas is alive which is ironic because four men and two other animals are dead because everyone thought he had been killed. If they would have known that he was alive and out gallivanting the entire day of violence might never have happened.
Mairead's Cat
Mairead loves the INLA and she loves the idea of being a terrorist. She also loves Padraic. She is devoted to both of these things but when she realizes that Padraic has killed Sir Roger she snaps and shoots him dead. Having saved him from his assassins, committed herself to a future with him politically and accepted his marriage proposal, the killing of her cat changes her mind about everything.
Sixteen Year Old Sharp Shooter
Padraic is an experienced, if deranged, killer within both the IRA and the INLA. Christy, Brendan and Joey are also well versed in murder and are trusted enough by their organization that they are chosen to assassinate Padraic. Yet, all four men are ultimately stopped by a sixteen year old girl whom they have tended to mock for her terrorist ambitions. She mortally wounds Christy, Brendan and Joey after outwitting them and waiting for them outside the house, and she kills Padraic with his own gun whilst kissing him.
Survival of Donny and Davey
At the start of the play it seems a pretty sure thing that Donny and Davey will be killed by Padraic who will blame them for the death of Wee Thomas. Although he knows that neither actually killed the cat, he will be furious that Wee Thomas was in his father's care at the time of his untimely demise. He ties them up whilst he tries to get to the bottom of what has gone on but as he is readying himself to torture and subsequently kill them, the INLA assassins arrive, which saves them. Even when it turns out that Padraic has survived their attempt to murder him, Donny and Davey are saved by virtue of the fact that they are needed for clean up, and to dismember the bodies of the men. Mairead kills Padraic, from whom they are now forever safe, and although it seems likely that she will punish them for Sir Roger being in the house in the first place, it is ironic that the characters most likely to be killed during the play are actually the last men standing at the end.
