Joe and Kate Ruttledge have returned from London to live and work among the small, close-knit community near to where Joe grew up. Now deeply embedded in life around the lake, the drama of a year in their lives and those of the memorable characters around them unfolds through the rituals of work, play and the passing seasons as this enclosed world becomes an everywhere.

An American tourist tracing her ancestors in a small Irish village gets shown local sites by a knowledgeable barfly with the gift of the gab, until their shared sense of loss sparks a connection that goes beyond words.