What is Dearbhla's background?

Dearbhla's people were Protestant Irish. They were poor laborers who came from Ireland two generations past. They were first indentured servants and then tenant farmers. Dearbhla's father was a drunk who sometimes worked as a ditch digger for landowners from the great houses. Dearbhla's mother was a midwife and woods doctor for other poor whites. When Dearbhla's father disappeared, she and her mother were living in a one-room cabin in sight of the plantation slave quarters.