Ellen McWilliams reflects on her Catholic upbringing in West Cork in the 1980s and 1990s, and on relations with her Protestant neighbours. She is haunted by the killings in the period of Ireland’s War of Independence and Civil War, and in particular by the ‘Dunmanway massacre’ of April 1922 which marked the area where she grew up. Her great grandmother was active in Cumann na mBan and her granduncle fought for independence as well as in the anti-Treaty IRA. The book reveals why the events of those days remain deeply personal and how they shape her adult life as she moves to England, marries an expert on Cromwell and the English Civil War, teaches Irish literature at an English university, experiences pregnancy and childbirth, and nurtures her son in his early years.