In 1940s Dublin, handsome Johnny Cassidy is widowed, out of work and lost as to how to look after his four children. Broken-hearted, he's tempted to look for the answer at the bottom of a beer glass, and it takes another calamity for him to realise help sometimes comes from the strangest places.

With Johnny's family over the sea in Liverpool, it's his wife's spinster cousin who comes to the rescue. Nora's well-ordered life is turned upside down by this brood of children to keep fed, schooled and out of trouble. But underneath the bustle of daily life, they all cherish secret dreams, some of which threaten to tear the family apart.

With Nora around, Ella Cassidy can be a teenager again, rather than trying to raise her younger siblings, while her older brother, Sean, finds that music might be his salvation. But when he takes to the stage, it's the start of a journey that will take him far from home, and right to the kind of trouble he thought he'd outran.