Invited by older brothers, Joe and Robert, to join their successful company in America, 19 year old country boy Michael McBride is booked on the Titanic. After surviving the the sinking and unaware that their family business has been built on corruption with the backing of the Mafia, he works hard to learn all he can. Through distractions, distance and deceit, he unwittingly neglects his love back in Ireland. Ellen Dunne, finding she is pregnant, and hearing false rumours of Michael's impending engagement to the bosses daughter, is panicked into marriage to neighbouring, older farmer Patrick Lafferty. Over the years, feuds and resentments divide brothers Michael and Robert. Michael's love for Ellen never fades with one of his visits back home resulting in another pregnancy. Eighteen years pass before Michael finds out that, Jack, Ellen's son, and a boy he has befriended and grown to love on visits over the years, is really his; the revelation is announced at Ellen's funeral. Jack rejects him offhand. Can father and son be reconciled; Will Michael find new love, and will power hungry brother Robert one day rue his guilty past?