In these three early plays - generally considered his greatest work - Sean O'Casey mirrors the lives of the Dublin poor of the early twentieth century, from the tenement dwellers in The Shadow of a Gunman and Juno and the Paycock to the bricklayer, street vendor, and charwoman in The Plough and the Stars. He conveys the tiny details that create a total character as well as the terrors, large and small, that the constant threat of political violence inevitably brings.