Poor Mouth

It may be relatively obvious that the Poor Mouth is intended to be humorous, but despite its obvious nature, the use of humor is very important to the book. It is used to probe into the minds of the truly Gaelic to reveal their thoughts and feelings about their heritage and to poke fun at the unrelenting Gaelic sense of pride. The most prominent theme in the book is the Gaelic mindset that everything that can go wrong will go wrong. Irony is probably the most effective means of highlighting this theme, and is seen at virtually every twist and turn of the story.

There are innumerable examples of the Gaelic everything that can go wrong will go wrong mentality, but a few are the most obvious and useful. The first is the Gaelic feis. It is intended to be a huge celebration, but although there is celebrating, a number of people die. Eight died simply from dancing too much. This shows that even in times of celebration the Gaels can not escape their fate. A second example is Bonaparte O'Coonassa's, or Jams O'Donnell, marriage. Again, when things are going great tragedy strikes. He is finally married and even has a baby boy, and basically out of no where his wife and child die. A third example is O'Coonassa's fate at the end of the story. He becomes very rich when he finds the gold pieces hidden in the mountain with Maeldoon O'Poenassa, but he ends up being falsely accused and convicted of murdering an English man and gets 29 years in prison.

Although to a lesser extent, the book also makes fun of the strong sense of Gaelic pride. The author makes fun of Gaelic names giving every character a surname of O'blanknassa. He also repeatedly points out that the native land of these Gaelics is a place that no one would ever want to call home. And he makes fun of the fact that all Gaels are dirt poor. But he also gives a sense that the Gaelic people are content with their situation and that they basically own it because it is part of what makes them Gaelic. If they were to escape the hardships and find prosperity, then they would no longer be able to call themselves truly Gaelic.