Irish Ways focuses on daily confrontations between the British Army and Irish Nationalists. It reveals discrimination in housing and employment, and laws permitting arbitrary arrest and imprisonment of Irish nationalists. The film investigates the pervasive atmosphere of fear and mistrust - constant surveillance of neighborhoods and business districts, television advertisements encouraging citizens to report suspicious neighbors to British troops, and the commonplace bombings and shootings. Giving voice to soldiers on both sides and to ordinary citizens who must live in wartime circumstances, Irish Ways provides important background to the continuing civil war over Ireland.