"The Irish flocked to Australia in search of streets paved with gold. Instead, they found those streets were made of stone harder than a landlord's heart." In the tradition of "Angela's Ashes," this romantic mini-series follows one Irish-Australian family's journey through hard times in the aftermath of World War II.

The crowded streets of Surry Hills are named after the many Irish who have called it home over the years - Ryan, Murphy, Riley. They had come in search of a better life, but instead found a hardscrabble existence in an unforgiving country. Surry Hills has become an odd refuge for their descendants: a place with a bad, dirty name that shelters the lazy and the criminal, but a town whose inhabitants are fiercely loyal to one another and where acts of kindness appear at the most unlikely times. The Darcy family lives in a cramped tenement built on this bitter ground. Amidst the crime, despair and grinding poverty that threaten to engulf them, they struggle to keep their dreams alive. For their ragtag band of neighbours and the shady characters who pass through Surry Hills, the Darcy home is a beacon of light in a town built over a grave of dashed hopes.