During the Depression, Jimmy Gralton returns home to Ireland after ten years of exile in America. Seeing the levels of poverty and oppression, the activist in him reawakens and he looks to re-open the dance hall that led to his deportation.
In 1932, Jimmy Gralton is back home in the Irish countryside after 10 years of forced exile in the USA. His widowed mother Alice is happy, Jimmy's friends are happy, all the young people who enjoy dancing and singing are happy. Which is not the case of Father Sheridan, the local priest, nor of the village squire, nor of Dennis O'Keefe, the chief of the fascists. The reason is simple: Jimmy is a socialist activist. So when the "intruder" reopens the village hall, thus enabling the villagers to gather to sing, dance, paint, study, or box, they take a dim view of the whole thing. People who think and unite are difficult to manipulate, aren't they? From that moment on they will use every means possible to get rid of Jimmy and his "dangerous" hall.—Guy Bellinger
In 1932, after ten years in the United States of America, Jimmy Gralton returns to his native Ireland to help his mother run the family farm. A new government is in power in Ireland ten years after the end of the Civil War. To meet the needs of the young people of County Leitrim, Jimmy, in spite of his reluctance to cause upset to his old enemies (the Church and the local landowners), decides to reopen the 'Hall', a young people's centre, free and open to all, where the local young people meet to dance, study or talk. Success comes quickly, but the growing influence of Jimmy and his radical ideas is not to the taste of everyone in the village.
