Bull McCabe (Richard Harris) has spent three decades tending a rented field on the bluffs by the sea in Ireland. When the wealthy widow who owns the plot decides to sell it, she holds an open auction to spite McCabe. A rich American (Tom Berenger) with visions of a factory on the site outbids him, and McCabe then schemes with his emotionally crippled son, Tadgh (Sean Bean), to hold on to the land -- his only consolation in a life of loss, toil and a marriage gone sour.