Florence Arnold-Forster was the adopted daughter of William Edward Forster, one of the foremost British liberals of the late 19th century with a distinguished record of social concern and political reform. In 1880-1882 she accompanied Forster when he took on responsibility for the government of Ireland; this journal is an account of this period. Forster had a burning desire to "do what is righteous and just at all costs", but in these years of agrarian distress, social and political conflict and intensifying violence, he found himself thwarted or rejected at every step and driven unwillingly down the road of repression. This is an account of the day-to-day experience of Irish administrative government at a critical period; it is also an account of family life, politics, and society in Victorian Britain and Ireland.