The Speaker
The poem's only character is its speaker, the Irish Airman of the title. This speaker is clear-eyed, and he is uninterested in fighting on behalf of any lofty patriotic aims. This is partly because of his nationality. Though he is not identified by name, he is identified as being Irish. Because of his Irishness, he feels no investment in the British army of which he is a part: Ireland was controlled and often oppressed by the British government at the time of Yeats's writing and during World War I, in which the poem is set. Despite the riskiness of his job, the speaker doesn't feel afraid, because he has a sense that his life would be wasted and difficult anyway. Because of this, even though he isn't invested in the war itself, he feels at peace with his own role in it.
