A village thug is brutally slain in a rural wood. The body of a young woman from an affluent Dublin family washes up on a suburban beach. A small is town held under the spell of a charismatic and sinister young curate. Gabriel Carroll, tormented by the tragic death of his boyhood pal, implicated in the murder of his girlfriend, and carrying a dark secret, is forced to flee his hometown to avoid a mob led by the Reverend Earl Jessop. His return home in January 1976 coincides with the storm of the century and brings him face to face with the demons which have haunted his life since childhood, playing out to a fatal conclusion down on The Barrow Pier amid the fury of the storm.