The film is divided into 36 chapters. In the fictional Irish town of Tyrellin, near the border of Northern Ireland in the late 1940s, cartoon robins narrate as Patrick Braden's mother, Eily Bergin, abandons him on the doorstep of the local parochial house where his father, Father Liam, lives. He is then placed with an unloving foster mother. Biologically male, a young Patrick is later shown donning a dress and lipstick, which angers his foster family. Patrick is accepted by his close friends Charlie, Irwin, and Lawrence, as well as by Lawrence's father, who tells Patrick that Eily looked like blonde American movie star Mitzi Gaynor.