Milligan and Murphy are two half-brothers who live with their widowed mother in a small backwards village in a country that feels a lot like Ireland. They're a pair of wastrels not that there's much in their lives to get wasted, other than themselves, which they do whenever financially able which is nowhere near as often as they'd like.

One day, on their way to look for work, they encounter a strange old man who proposes they throw caution to the wind and see what lies beyond the border of their small world.

What they encounter from there on are a band of odd individuals who help them on their way and, in the course of helping them, throw some light on why they would set out on such a venture in the first place.

A bit about the writing of Milligan and Murphy