The Reverend Herbert Ross wanted to be a good man. So did Major Robert Mahon and Margaret Kingston. And, though they would not have articulated their ambitions in such a way, Cornelius O'Connor, Michael and Mary Deane, and Philip Kingston also wanted to do the right thing. At a time of famine, however, Ireland, 1844-1846, when enormous changes are taking place to the landscape and make-up of the country, doing the right thing is not easy, nor guaranteed to have the right effect.
