Desmond's wife leaves him and their 3 kids after Christmas 1953. Unemployed in Dublin, the authorities place the kids in orphanages. Employed again, Desmond tries to get his kids back.
In this Derek Jarman version of Christopher Marlowe's Elizabethan drama, in modern costumes and settings, Plantagenet king Edward II hands the power-craving nobility the perfect excuse by taking as lover besides his diplomatic wife, the French princess Isabel, not an acceptable lady at court but the ambitious Piers Gaveston, who uses his favor in bed even to wield political influence - the stage is set for a palace revolt which sends the gay pair from the throne to a terminal torture dungeon.
Helen's husband died tragically. She's seeking her satisfaction somewhere in a little Irish village. She begins to paint again and meets with a restorer, who works on the local railway station building. They fall in love "very slowly" but their pasts shade this close connection...
The 1981 hunger strike in an Irish prison, in which I.R.A. prisoner Bobby Sands led a protest against their treatment as criminals rather than as prisoners of war. It focuses on the mothers of two of the strikers, and their struggle.
A family in financial crisis is forced to sell Lassie, their beloved dog. Hundreds of miles away from her true family, Lassie escapes and sets out on a journey home.