Ellen, romantic and naive, falls in love with James, an Irishman serving in the British Army. He is posted to India and this, for her, is a dream come true. After seven years of heartache and joy, and a lifestyle which is leisurely and luxurious, they return to Ireland and James is demobbed.

They settle with their three young children in Dublin, a city rife with political and civil unrest, and beset with terrible poverty. When World War I is declared, James re-enlists. Ellen is left to bring up her children alone, in a city which views the wives of British soldiers with suspicion.

If James survives and returns, it will be to a different Ireland, one which has lived through the 1916 Rising and its aftermath, where anti- British sentiment grows stronger every day.

Ellen longs for James but worries. Will there be a place for them in this new Ireland?