It was immensely popular when it was published. The writing is direct and powerfully evokes the over-population, the terrible poverty and the peculiar intimacy of pre-independence Dublin. One theme is the essential goodness of people and the tenderness which survives the brutality of deprivation. The popularity of the novel also owed something to events in Ireland in the early 1970s, as The Troubles made the more traditional iconography of the insurrectionary period troublesome, while economic stagnation and social crisis fostered empathy for the former Dublin of tenements, working class heroes, and vagrant balladeers.