The wide open spaces of Connemara, filled with nothing but sea and sky, are all lost to Esther Doyle when she is betrayed by her lover, Conor. Rejected by her family, she is sent to join the 'fallen women' of the Holy Saints Convent in Dublin where, behind high granite walls, she works in the infamous Magdalen laundry while she awaits the birth of her baby. At the mercy of nuns, and working mostly in silence alongside the other 'Maggies,' Esther...

In the mid-nineteenth century, thirteen-year-old Peggy O'Driscoll sets out alone from Ireland for America, hoping to make a better life for herself.

In the absence of their parents, the three O'Driscoll children face hard times when fever and famine come to their Ireland valley and the threat of the workhouse drives them into the countryside.