By the start of the 20th century many Irish people were living in squalor: the country's infant mortality rate was the highest in Europe and tuberculosis was rampant. The daunting and tireless Lady Ishbel Aberdeen, wife of the British Viceroy to Ireland, devoted herself to social changes that could save lives. But she often faced ridicule because of the contrast between her own high status and her concern for the common man. Arthur Griffith, future president of Ireland, publicly nicknamed her The Viceregal Microbe. This book tells the story of the friction between the struggle for Irish...