A teenage boy witnesses a physical attack on an elderly man in a local wood and is immediately threatened by a menacing stranger to keep what he saw a secret to ensure his father's safety. A few days later, unknown to the public at large, the corpse of a supposedly penniless drunk disappears from his coffin when reposing in a secluded rural church.
The events conspire to turn the life of local curate and former soldier Fr Liam Hegarty upside down. When the boy's future wellbeing is thrust on his shoulders, Liam's commitment to try and find peaceful solutions to all conflicts is tested to the extreme when he is forced to become an unwitting trouble-shooter.
As the poisoned underbelly of their town begins to be exposed, some locals in the foothills Kerry village of Knockeven discover that some of their friends and neighbours are far from the people they imagined they were. Instead, they are cold, calculating individuals who will stop at nothing to satisfy their sexual and financial desires.