Nora Clitheroe, an Irish woman whose husband is a member of the Citizen Army. She nearly loses her sanity when he goes off to fight on the barricades and is killed.
Jack Clitheroe, Nora’s husband, an Irish patriot who is killed in the fighting.
Peter Flynn, Nora’s uncle, a rather pathetic, ineffectual man whose patriotism is stirred by the oratory he hears.
Fluther Good, one of the tenement dwellers. He is given to heavy drinking but makes himself generally helpful to his neighbors.
Mrs. Gogan, a neighborhood woman who engages in a barroom brawl with Bessie Burgess and disapproves of Nora buying so many new clothes.
Mollser Gogan, the small daughter of Mrs. Gogan. She dies of tuberculosis and is buried in a coffin shared with Nora’s stillborn child.
Bessie Burgess, one of the tenement women. She is coarse and vigorous.
The Covey, Nora’s cousin, who is the purveyor of the author’s views concerning the poverty of the Irish and the problem of their independence.
Captain Brennan, an officer in the Irish Citizen Army and a comrade in arms of Jack Clitheroe.
Corporal Stoddart, an English soldier who escorts the coffin of Mollser Gogan and Nora’s child.
Sergeant Tinley, of the Wiltshires.