Kate & John Ryan have four children of whom the eldest are Michael & Dara. Their small town is peaceful & friendly an unchanging background for a golden childhood. In long hot summers Michael & Dara & their friends fish & swim or play in the ivy-clad ruins of Fernscourt when the great house burnt down during the Troubles... No one in Mountfern has the slightest inkling of what it will mean when the ruins are bought by Patrick ONeill an Irish American with a dream in his heart & a great deal of money in his pocket. It is not until the very end of this drama with its interlocking stories of love lost & won ambitions nurtured & secrets betrayed that Patrick ONeill will understand the irony & the significance of his great dream for Mountfern.