Adam and Paul are two young junkies living in Dublin and perpetually on the lookout for their next fix. During their search, they encounter various unsavoury characters and make some futile attempts at petty theft. As their day progresses, Adam and Paul get into a good share of trouble as they do whatever they can to score heroin, eventually running afoul of an imposing thug—who only drags them into more shady activities.
In this true story, Veronica Guerin is an investigative reporter for an Irish newspaper. As the drug trade begins to bleed into the mainstream, Guerin decides to take on and expose those responsible. Beginning at the bottom with addicts, Guerin then gets in touch with John Traynor, a paranoid informant. Not without some prodding, Traynor leads her to John Gilligan, the ruthless head of the operation, who does not take kindly to Guerin's nosing.
In the near future a young biker leaves his crumbling life in rural Ireland to join a strange 'metal circus' as it tours the cities of Europe. He discovers a dark side to the circus and decides to leave, but finds he is caught between his love of a circus girl and the dark hand of the boss who is determined he stays.
Michael Lynch is a notorious criminal with two wives and a flair for showmanship. He's also a huge embarrassment to the local police, who are determined to bring him down once and for all.
A man released from jail, where he had served time for doctoring the books of a gangster, has to go into hiding from the gangster's men. He moves into a Dublin boarding house run by a woman and her timid daughter. The timid woman immediately takes a shine to the new boarder and to his train sets, which they each use as an escape from reality.
Alfie Byrne is a middle-aged bus conductor in Dublin in 1963. He would appear to live a life of quiet desperation: he's gay, but firmly closeted, and his sister is always trying to find him "the right girl". His passion is Oscar Wilde, his hobby is putting on amateur theatre productions in the local church hall. We follow him as he struggles with temptation, friendship, disapproval, and the conservative yet oddly lyrical world of Ireland in the early 1960s.