It is 1920. Donal Davoren is a poet who has come to room with Seamus Shields in a poor, Dublin tenement slum.
Many of the residents of the tenement mistake Donal for an IRA volunteer (gunman on the run). Donal does not refute this notoriety, especially when it wins him the affection of Minnie Powell, an attractive young woman in the tenement. Meanwhile, Seamus' business partner, Mr Maguire hides a bag full of bombs in Seamus' apartment before participating in an ambush in which he is killed. The city is put under curfew as a result of the ambush, and Donal and Seamus do not discover the grenades until the British army arrives at the tenement.