Nicholas, of the Irish gentry, lives as a miner, pastoralist, brother, husband and parent in Australia after the potato famine. In 1852, after unrest and the potato famine, Nicholas Sadleir leaves Ireland's Protestant ascendancy with two brothers for Victoria when he is 17. He finds gold to start his life in farming and grazing in New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania but loses his thousands of sheep and cattle in the depression of the 1890s. His brothers thrive in law, medicine and policing. One supervises the end of the Kelly gang. Nicholas marries Anna Sturgess. Anna promotes their 15 children's nobility, citing her links to the Earls of Oxford, only for her first son to refuse a baronetcy - he thinks it nonsense. The children prosper in Australia. Four move to Argentina and Sadleirs still breed Merino sheep there.