After Shell's mother dies her obsessively religious father descends into alcoholic mourning & Shell is left to care for her younger brother & sister. Her only release from the harshness of everyday life comes from her budding spiritual friendship with a naive young priest & most importantly her developing relationship with childhood friend Declan charming eloquent & persuasive. But when Declan suddenly leaves Ireland to seek his fortune in America Shell finds herself pregnant & the centre of a scandal that rocks the small community in which she lives with repercussions across the whole country. The lives of those immediately around her will never be the same again.