A penniless middle-aged spinster scrapes by giving piano lessons in the Dublin of the 1950s. She makes a sad last bid for love with a fellow resident of her rundown boarding house, who imagines she has the money to bankroll the business he hopes to open.

A naive young country girl moves to Dublin and finds herself drawn to a sophisticated author twice her age.

The wife of an Irish school teacher is branded a traitor when she falls for a British officer who is part of an occupying force in 1917 Ireland.