Although Liz McManus never knew her maternal grandparents, by using old family papers, she has pieced together their story. Wallace and Margaret McKay are Unitarian by birth and republican by conviction. It is the start of the twentieth century and hopes for Irish independence are growing. Wallace’s job takes the young couple and their children to North East India, to the tea gardens of Assam, where, before too long, tragedy strikes. Set in two continents, this is a story about an idealistic couple for whom the new Irish Free State, increasingly dominated by the Catholic Church, becomes an alien place. Even within the family, ruptures are caused, so deep they cannot be breached.

Although Liz McManus never knew her maternal grandparents, by using old family papers, she has pieced together their story. Wallace and Margaret McKay are Unitarian by birth and republican by conviction. It is the start of the twentieth century and hopes for Irish independence are growing. Wallace’s job takes the young couple and their children to North East India, to the tea gardens of Assam, where, before too long, tragedy strikes. Set in two continents, this is a story about an idealistic couple for whom the new Irish Free State, increasingly dominated by the Catholic Church, becomes an alien place. Even within the family, ruptures are caused, so deep they cannot be breached.

Although Liz McManus never knew her maternal grandparents, by using old family papers, she has pieced together their story. Wallace and Margaret McKay are Unitarian by birth and republican by conviction. It is the start of the twentieth century and hopes for Irish independence are growing. Wallace’s job takes the young couple and their children to North East India, to the tea gardens of Assam, where, before too long, tragedy strikes. Set in two continents, this is a story about an idealistic couple for whom the new Irish Free State, increasingly dominated by the Catholic Church, becomes an alien place. Even within the family, ruptures are caused, so deep they cannot be breached.