The play charts the trials and tribulations of Lil Sweeney's life in the Maria Goretti flats as she deals with crime, poverty, unemployment, drug abuse, and tries to come to terms with the premature death of her daughter Chrisse, a heroin addict who died a year before the action starts from an AIDS related illness. Lil's husband, Sweeney, is a pigeon fancier who, upon discovering that all his pigeons have been killed, retreats into a bird-like state. Irish composer Frank Corcoran wrote a series of works between 1996 and 2003 around the tale. This includes the choral work "Buile Suibhne / Mad Sweeney" (1996, after Heaney), the electro-acoustic composition "Sweeney's Vision" (1997), and the chamber work "Sweeney's Smithereens" (2000). Noah Mosley composed the opera "Mad King Suibhne" in 2017 produced by Bury Court Opera with a libretto by Ivo Mosley and it was also performed at Messum's barn, Wiltshire.