Maggie O’Farrell

So I've always been interested in the life of my great-grandfather, Liam, in the book.

He became a Jesuit, which is not something that happens.

I don't think it's a decision you take lightly in life, and it's certainly not something that happens easily or accidentally.

So he became a Jesuit, and then later in life, he left the Jesuits, which I

Pretty unusual back in the 19th century.

Very unusual.

And he became a mapper like his father had been.

So that's always fascinated me.

I mean, it's such an enormous thing to decide to commit your life to the church and to become a Jesuit.

And then an even more enormous thing to leave it.

But then the fact that also his father had been a mapper, that really interested me.

I thought it's very strange to go so far from your father's job and influence and then come right back to it.

And we didn't really know much about his father, my great, great grandfather.

So I went looking for him in the archives in Dublin, and he was very hard to find, mostly because...

At that time, if you were employed by the Ordnance Survey, which had strong connections with the British Army, if you were Irish, you were not allowed to sign your own work.

You did all the work and the British officers signed it for you.

So he was very difficult to find.

I mean, I could find work that I thought was his, but I couldn't be sure because his name wasn't on it.

I could find his name on certain things like ledgers or wages.

But I found a document which said that he'd started working for the Ordnance Survey in 1848.