Claudia & her younger sister Jenny live with their parents Louisa & Cormack Muldoon in their grandmother's house in Blodwen Street. Louisa has a good job in a dress shop on Scotland Road & Cormack is a supervisor at the nearby tobacco manufactory. They assume they are settled for life but then Grandpa Muldoon has a seizure & begs his son to return to Kilnevin & the family croft.