A New Day Dawning is set in the unreal world of Rookery Rally, which portrays Tipperary countryside and a hillside community in the late 1940s.

It follows a group of children through their formative years as their personal beliefs and personalities develop. Alternating acts of good and evil are carried out by the children as they struggle to set their own moral compasses. They walk three miles to bring back a puppy for an old man left broken-hearted by the death of his dog; they accompany their parents on a hunt and share in the act of killing foxes and their cubs; they drown a tinker's pup; they turn over a new leaf and promise to be good after a stern fire-and-brimstone sermon.

There's stop-and-start progression within the children's moral development as they try to prove themselves good and worthy people on their jaunty adolescent journey towards adulthood. Will the good outweigh the bad? Will optimism outweigh the cynicism of today's world?