Peggy Cassidy is a milly, working in the Belfast linen mills to just about get by. But Peggy also has another job - a secret one. She works as a handywoman - an illegal midwife, tending to the women of her community in their time of need.
When Peggy is offered the chance to leave Belfast to receive formal midwifery training in Dublin, it sets off a chain of events that will change her life forever.
But amongst her middle-class colleagues, Peggy must keep the truth about her past secret at all times. If the realities of her life in Belfast are revealed, she could lose everything she has worked for.
And when she meets a well-to-do doctor down in Dublin, she must make a decision: should she protect her family and her history? Or can she let herself fall in love?