Maggie O’Farrell

So obviously the human and physical geography of the land was completely changed in just that short decade.

It is a necessary but unenviable part of his current task to distill into inked symbols and ordered lines what has taken place here since the first maps were drawn.

These new revisions must contain a cartographic record of the Great Hunger, the disaster that struck this land more than a decade ago now.

Tomás must amend the hundreds of households in a barony to the handful that now remain.

He must erase row after row of tenant cottages on landowner estates which have been emptied and dismantled.

The Redcoats turn their eyes from this task.

They prefer never to acknowledge the crisis that befell the country, the losses and deprivations it has suffered.

They do not wish to make such marks upon their maps, which might lead to certain admittances.

Tomas has determined, however, that his maps will bear an account of what happened, what was lost, if it kills him.

Well, the Great Famine had very complicated and numerous causes.

Obviously, there was a natural element to it.

The bacteria that destroyed the potato crop was all over Europe at this time.

In fact, the country that suffered the second largest losses was Belgium.

They lost 50,000 people.

Obviously, Ireland lost a million.

Some people think that's a conservative estimate.

So

There's a huge disparity in that and of course the reason would be that there are many, many complicated political, socio-economic, colonialist reasons for why the famine was so particularly devastating in Ireland.

And I'm just going to tell you one thing.

The man who was appointed famine relief officer was a man called Charles Trevelyan and he worked for the British government.