Born in Newry, County Down in Northern Ireland in 1964, Emer McCourt is an actress, producer, novelist and singer.
Stevie, fresh from prison in Scotland, finds a job on a London construction site. The working conditions are poor and most of the men are working under aliases, due to immigration status and to not conflict with their "signing on" for unemployment benefits. Some coworkers help Stevie secure housing, squatting in a council estate. Then Stevie meets Susan, from Ireland, who's struggling to be a professional singer.
School leaver Phil moves with his father from inner-city London to the satellite Hertfordshire New Town of Stevenage, where they are promised a brighter future...but all Phil finds there is a bleak, cultural wilderness; a world of unemployment, violence, alcoholism and drug abuse in 90s Britain
Rachel discovers she is pregnant. Just as she is about to break the news to her stockbroker boyfriend Bill, he dumps her. Heartbroken and angry, Rachel takes Bill's cherished sports car, clears out their joint bank account and heads off to the country and to her dysfunctional family's farmhouse. By trying to sort out her own family's problems Rachel hopes to come to terms with her own predicament. But Bill discovers her whereabouts and is on the warpath.