Michael Emmett's questing spirit makes him singular among the friends and townsfolk who already seem to know their mind, especially when tragedy threatens to tear him and his darling apart. Famine, murder and betrayal demand a choice between Irish freedom and English tyranny as all the while Erin beckons her complacent sons to answer the insistent call of the pipes. To what extremes will Michael, Mary, Shamus, Julian and countless others be forced to comply?