The movie starts at the 1998 bomb attack by the Real IRA at Omagh, Northern Ireland. The attack killed 31 people. Michael Gallagher one of the relatives of the victims starts an examination to bring the people responsible to court.

A young woman, Tara Maguire (Robin Wright) scandalizes her provincial Irish village in the 1950s by having a baby out of a wedlock, and refusing to name the father. She has a rare beauty and every man in town desires her, especially Sergeant Hegarty (Albert Finney). The arrival of a dramatic troupe stirs things up even more, especially when she falls in love with one f the "Playboys", Tom Casey (Aidan Quinn).

William Franklin is a teacher who was born in Ireland and moved to the United States only to repatriate in 1939 after his leftist political views cause him to lose his job. Franklin becomes the first non-cleric instructor at St. Jude's, a school for wayward boys run by Brother John, who is a firm believer in strong discipline.

Saxophonist Danny witnesses the murder of his band manager and a deaf-mute girl after a gig. Questioned by the police, he remembers only the orthopedic shoes of the killers’ leader. So begins his quest to avenge her.

A grieving Connecticut mother temporarily switches houses with a woman in Dublin, Ireland.

A woman and her daughter are stranded in a rambling old house deep in the countryside of County Tyrone. Their economic circumstances are hopeless, but it is friends and former business associates who pose the greatest threat to their happiness.

A police informant is found dead in a boarding-school situated near the border between Ulster and Eire. There are three suspects: the protestant school headmistress; Marley, an unfrocked missionary priest; and Benny, a seventeen-year-old criminal who has taken sanctuary in the school...

A police computer expert is seconded to Belfast to track down the identity of an IRA mole.

A story of doomed love, the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte and a gruesome tale from ancient history.

War between two Irish youth gangs consists of removing and retrieving buttons from each other's clothing.