''Into the West'' is a film about two young boys, Tito (Conroy) and Ossie (Fitzgerald), whose father "Papa" Reilly (Byrne) was "King of Irish Travellers" until his wife, Mary, died during the birth of their second son, Ossie. The boys' grandfather (David Kelly) is an old story-telling Traveller, who regales the children with Irish folk-tales and legends. When he is followed by a beautiful white horse called Tír na nÓg (meaning "Land of Eternal Youth" in Irish), from the sea to Dublin, where the boys and their father have now settled down in a grim tower block in Ballymun, the boys are overwhelmed with joy and dreams of becoming cowboys. The horse is stolen from them and they begin their adventure to get their mystical horse back. They escape the poverty of a north Dublin council estate, and ride "Into the West" where they find that Tír na nÓg is not just a horse.