Every family has a story … for Liam O’Connor that story goes back to his great-grandparents, William and Norry Kennedy. Using the threads of his family’s past to weave a tapestry that is at once personal yet somehow universal, this family memoir gives the reader an eye-witness perspective on the tumultuous lives of the landless, labouring class of nineteenth-century Ireland.

Tales of William’s youthful adventures with the Royal Navy and serving in HM Coastguard are contrasted with Norry’s early years of domestic servitude, as their lives through these years were set against the backdrop of Britain’s near-global empire and the Big Houses of local landlords, of wars abroad and social turmoil at home, before giving way post-marriage to the priority of surviving and raising a family no matter the circumstances.