Katie, the 14-year-old daughter of a travelling family, is left in charge of an ailing mother and her nine brothers and sisters in Dublin whilst her father is in England seeking his fortune.
Joseph (Paul Newman), un agente del Servicio de Inteligencia Británico, huye de la cárcel con un espía. Su misión consiste en infiltrarse en una red de espionaje para identificar y denunciar a sus miembros.
A pesar de hacer los trabajos más duros y humildes, John Cassidy es un idealista que sueña con ser escritor. Pero le ha tocado vivir en Dublín, una ciudad que vive tiempos turbulentos por los motines y las huelgas de 1911, así que se dedica a repartir octavillas sediciosas. Por fin, llega el día en que termina de escribir un libro titulado "Historia del ejército popular irlandés", que, no sin dificultad, consigue publicar.
Thomas Crimmins is a new warder, or guard, in an Irish prison. He is young, naive, and idealistic, determined to serve his country by his part in meting out justice to criminals. His superior, Regan, however, realizes that even prisoners are human beings, and Regan is sick of the eye-for-an-eye attitude that leads the state to execute condemned men, or "quare fellows." Crimmins begins to see that not all is black and white in his new world, and when he becomes involved with Kathleen, the wife of one of the condemned men, his attitude begins to change. When new evidence arises to suggest that Kathleen's husband may not deserve his fate, Crimmins is torn between his duty and his humanity.
