Episode 1
A family struggles for survival in the aftermath of the Great Hunger. Tomás intends to bears witness to the catastrophe in the maps he makes for the British. Read by Brian Gleeson.
Inspired by Maggie O’Farrell’s own family history, this spellbinding story follows a family’s struggle for survival in the aftermath of the Great Hunger. Tomás intends to bear witness to the catastrophe in the maps he makes for the hated British.
‘You will never understand how the land remembers, how deep the roots grow.’
On a windswept peninsula in the west of Ireland in 1865, Tomás and his son Liam are working for the Ordnance Survey to map the whole country. The landscape is scarred by deserted villages, entire populations lost to famine.
Tomás and Liam come across an ancient scrap of woodland unrecorded on existing maps. A strange encounter in this unsettling place leads to a transformation in Tomás that will change the lives of all around him.
The bestselling author of Hamnet returns with her tenth novel, a soaring history set in Ireland in the years before and after the Great Hunger.
Land is read by Brian Gleeson, best known for his roles in Bad Sisters, Love/Hate, Peaky Blinders and Under Salt Marsh.
Music: Veil of Mist by Caroline Dale
Reader: Brian Gleeson.
Abridger: Sara Davies
Production Co-Ordinator: Alison Crawford
Producers: Fay Lomas and Mary Ward-Lowery
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Broadcast
- Mon 15 Jun 202622:45BBC Radio 4
