Ambrose Feeney has seen his hopes and ambitions dashed by others' influence and his own inertia. His Limerick is an old siege city of walls, both real and psychological. As Ambrose descends into lunacy he paints a starkly sane portrait of one family's life in an Ireland unsoftened by the mists of legend. The Life and Times of a Teaboy begins with the recollection of a Christmas past and ends with the entrance of the principal character into a lunatic asylum; a crisis in personal growth that mirrors the nation's.