Northern Ireland. The young catholic Cal lives alone with his father Shamie in a town near Belfast among a majority of protestants. Cal's mother died when he was eight years old.
Cal sympathizes with the IRA. Together with his friends Crilly and Skeffington, also members of the IRA, Cal plans criminal acts.
One day when he borrows a book in a library he sees Marcella and falls in love with her. Marcella is much older than Cal, a widow and the mother of a little daughter.
Her protestant husband was killed in an ambush Cal was involved in: he was driving the escape car of the murderer.