Liverpool, 1904. When Ada Docherty gives birth to twins, Deidre and Donal, in her tiny house in Evangelist Court, she has no choice but to make Ellen, her eldest daughter, bring them up, for she must work to feed seven hungry mouths. But in Dublin, Maggie McVeigh's lot is even harder, for she sleeps on straw in a tumbledown tenement. When a local woman, Mrs. Nolan, needs someone to look after her sons, Maggie takes on the job and finds security and comfort and love, too, with the eldest boy, Liam. This is the story of two families struggling through poverty and hardship to reach their Rainbow's End.