Falling into despair after his nine-year-old son leaves for Australia with his ex, Joseph walks away from his present life and boards a boat for Ireland to confront painful memories from his childhood.

With no immediate family to live for, Joseph is haunted by a past he has tried, for decades, to forget - if not actively obscure with drink and drugs. Suffering the hangover from hell - the dry spell over - he walks away from his present life and boards a boat bound for Ireland to confront hazy, fear-inducing memories from a childhood spent in the care system that he's had to forget. Emotionally and physically wrecked, Joseph reunites with an incredulous Anna (Helen Behan, This is England '88 and '90), the sister he hasn't seen since childhood. Anna persuades her wary husband Michael (Frank Laverty; Michael Collins) to let Joseph stay and give him work in the family-owned building company. There, Joseph is forced to directly confront the demons of his past when he comes face to face with Craigy (Mark O'Halloran), a shadowy figure who is dogged by dark rumours, and who won't leave Joseph alone. Joseph's precarious family reunion is further complicated when he is immediately drawn to Michael's fiery sister Dinah (Niamh Algar; The Bisexual, Pure). Angry and lost, Dinah is fiercely guarded, and, like Joseph, haunted by a deeply-held secret. The Virtues is a visceral and hauntingly unforgettable paean to the human spirit, shot through with bittersweet tenderness, compassion and unexpected moments of laugh-out-loud humour throughout. Deftly addressing challenging themes of revenge, redemption and repressed memory, Meadows and co-writer, BAFTA-winning Jack Thorne, ask questions of what it really means to be, and have, family.—Channel4

The main character, Joseph, was a resident of an orphanage until running away at the age of 9. Decades later, the adult Joseph is distraught by the break-up of his long-term romantic relationship and the loss of custody of his only son. He decides to move back to his native Ireland, in order to reconnect with his long-lost sister Anna. He finds a new love interest in the troubled Dinah (Anna's sister-in-law), but a chance encounter with another boy from the orphanage leads to resurfacing memories that Joseph was raped by a teenage boy when he was a child. Joseph tracks down the rapist, Damon, and learns that the man is terminally ill and impoverished. Joseph has to decide whether to kill him or not.—Dimos I