The play opens in Donny’s cottage on Inishmore, an island off the west coast of Ireland, in 1993. Donny, a middle-aged man, and Davey, his 17-year-old, long-haired neighbor, are staring at a dead cat. Davey asks if Donny thinks the cat is dead. In response, Donny picks up the black cat, and its brains fall from its head. Davey insists that the vet might be able to fix him, and Donny kicks him in the rear. Donny berates Davey for riding his bike recklessly and hitting the cat, Wee Thomas. Davey denies it, exclaiming that he stopped his bike when he saw Wee Thomas lying in the street, picked him up, and brought him to Donny. Davey fetches his bike to prove that there are no bits of cat on the wheels, lamenting that Wee Thomas was a friendly cat, unlike most other cats, including his sister Mairead’s cat. Davey is horrified to learn that the cat belonged to Mad Padraic, Donny’s son, who is in the INLA (Irish National Liberation Army), having been rejected from the IRA (Irish Republican Army) for being too erratic.

Padraic has had Wee Thomas since the age of five, and he has been “his only friend for fifteen years” (6).