To Nora Kavanagh, the tiny Irish village of Killala is the only home she has ever known. But her home is being ravaged first by the devastating Potato Famine of the mid-1800's, then by the merciless absentee landlords who threaten to take over her family's one precious possession the land. One after another, the fever brought on by the famine claims her husband, daughter, and closest friends, leaving Nora and her young son Daniel in immeasurable sorrow and poverty.