The film opens with a boy crab fishing. We then observe three fishermen landing a flimsy holed currach in the force of the wind and the huge waves. Next, we see some of the hardships of mundane Aran life: making a field on the barren rocks using seaweed and soil scraped out of rock crevices, fixing holes in the boat with a mixture of cloth and tar, rendering the liver of the giant basking shark.