Just graduated, Peggy Fitzpatrick and some friends flee Dublin city for a week of madness in the coastal village of Ballydereen. Four of them set off. Three come back. Peggy has had more than enough. Her daughter, Sally Ann, is floundering in pubescent no-man's-land and making life hell; Patrick has gone to seed, more belly over than under his belt, and Nora, her social-climbing mother-in-law, has given her a bit too much lip. Leaving the exploded bags of groceries scattered on the kitchen floor where she dropped them, Peggy walks out. Blindly looking for freedom, her naive spontaneity leads her straight into a trap. After a few short days of exciting recklessness, suddenly no-one is laughing any more.