I wasn't really thinking about the his reaction to Irish politics and factionalism. there probably more factions in the English folk clubs.

I was thinking rather of Dubliners itself. The drunk who beats his children, the two children who set out looking for adventure and encounter a pervert, the ferrets cage intensity between entrants backstage in a music competition, the heartless lothario who cheats a poor servant girl out of her wages. And in Portrait of the Artist - a priest who beats a child for being short sighted.

Well its not exactly Under Milk Wood , is it?