Rupert Carr has enjoyed an idyllic childhood growing up on a small island off the north coast of Ireland. When at sixteen he goes to stay with his aunt and uncle in County Tyrone, to complete his schooling, Rupert meets and falls for Eilish, a perceptive and uninhibited convent girl. Through her he is drawn into the nascent civil rights movement and brought face to face with the political reality of the Six Counties when their peaceful protest march comes under vicious attack from loyalists with the tacit approval of the RUC. It is the beginning of the Troubles. Rupert flees to England but is soon made aware of the injustice that exists there too and is attracted to Fenella and her radical student circle. Finally Rupert must prove himself in a decisive action against the Establishment