Plot

Jamesy and Malachy are over the moon when their soft-hearted Dad presents them with two baby chicks to care for, but the two boys are in for a shock when their parents announce that big changes are coming to the family.

Jamesy and Malachy are over the moon when their soft-hearted dad presents them with two baby chicks to care for. Raising their tiny charges, declaring themselves vegetarian and dreaming of running a chicken farm, the two boys are in for a shock when their parents announce that big changes are coming to the family.

Belfast 1978. In the heart of the religious war happening in Northern Ireland, a little bit of humanity occurs when young adolescent brothers Malachy and Jamesy are given a gift of a baby chick apiece from their father Jim, usually a rather shifty character who recently worked on a farm where he got the birds. The boys take care of the birds, which they name Boogaloo and Graham, better than they take care of themselves. The birds also give them a new respect for life and a sense of their future. When the birds are almost fully grown, their mother and father give them some news that may be incompatible with keeping the birds. They as a family collective will have to reconcile these two diverging issues. Boogaloo and Graham may have some say in the matter as well, with a little human intervention thrown in.