Sharon Curley is a 20-year-old living with her parents and many brothers and sisters in Dublin. When she gets pregnant and refuses to name the father, she becomes the talk of the town.

It's Ireland in the 1960s and showbands and ballrooms are big business. However, Tony is struggling to repay his bank loan and is in danger of losing his ballroom. In order to save it, he sets out to turn unknown female performer Denise into a superstar practically overnight.

A small-time Belfast thief, Gerry Conlon, is wrongly convicted of an IRA bombing in London, along with his father and friends, and spends 15 years in prison fighting to prove his innocence.