Maggie O’Farrell

speaker

1,785 appearances 8 recordings 7 series first heard Feb 2026 last heard 14 Jun

Maggie O’Farrell’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 8 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 7.

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

The Book Show · How Maggie O'Farrell's inner 'neek' came out with Land · 14 Jun 2026 podcast

I'm going to wear it as a badge of honour.

Well, the first line of the novel is, his father was ever a man of few words.

And that describes Tomás, who, as we've made an allusion to, he's been through a very, very, he's had a very, very difficult life.

And there are many things that he's seen that he cannot speak about.

So one of his solutions, I think, to cope with this is not really to speak very much at all.

And he goes into an ancient piece of woodland, a copse, which doesn't appear on the map.

And he thinks he's going to have to survey it and map it and put it on the map.

But when he's in there, he realizes that maybe he shouldn't, because this is a part of Ireland that has never been touched by the colonizers.

And he encounters in there a sacred well or a spring or a tubba, as it's called in Irish culture.

And something happens to crack him open.

I've always been really fascinated by sacred wells or holy wells, as they're called in Ireland.

They're everywhere in the Irish landscape.

It's quite unusual to find a town or a village that doesn't have one, at least, either in the village or on the outskirts.

And they're really fascinating.

They go right back to Ireland's pre-Christian, pagan, druidical belief system.

And they are seen, I mean, you know, in those days they were worshipped for the hydromancy and then they became co-opted, quite a few of them, by Christianity and Catholicism.

They were renamed Holy Wells and given a saint's name.

But even now, to this day, people will enact devotions, as they're called, and you walk around them seven times and you can ask for a cure.

And, you know, I just find it so fascinating.

It's such an incredible thing.

Showing 81–100 of 1,785 · page 5 of 90