It's London, 1960, and Aoife Kelly runs pubs with her husband, Cash. Their courtship began in wartime London, before they returned to Ireland with their daughters. One of these daughters -Rosaleen - moves back to London, where she begins an affair with the famous sculptor Felix Lehmann. When Rosaleen finds herself pregnant, she is evicted from her flat, dismissed from her job, and desperate to hide the secret from her family. Meanwhile, Kate, another generation down, lives in present-day London with her daughter and husband. Kate sets out to track down her birth mother, a search that leads her to a Magdalene Laundry in Ireland and the harrowing history it holds.