In the slums of Dublin during the Irish Civil War 1922-23, Captain Boyle lives in a two-room tenement flat with his wife Juno and two children. Juno has dubbed her husband "the Paycock" - she thinks him as useless and vain as a peacock. Juno works while the Captain loafs around the flat when not drinking up the family's meager finances at the neighborhood pub. When the family inherits a sum of money, however, things only go from bad to worse.
