An Irish Catholic family returns to 1930s Limerick after a child's death in America. The unemployed I.R.A. veteran father struggles with poverty, prejudice, and alcoholism as the family endures harsh slum conditions.

When schoolteacher Kieran Johnson discovers that his father was not a French sailor (as he had been led to believe) but rather an Irish farmer, he looks to his mother for answers. When she refuses to provide any, Kieran travels to Ireland.

After a chance encounter, a Dubliner is stalked by a murderous facsimile of himself.

Philip is a misfit at his new school. When he is bullied, his mother decides to sort out things between him and his schoolmates, because his father unable to do so, as he is currently doing time in prison.