Books from Ireland

Ireland, 1865. On a windswept peninsula overlooking the Atlantic, Tomás and his ten-year-old son, Liam, work on the ambitious Ordnance Survey project to map the entire country. Still haunted by the devastating Great Hunger, Tomás is determined that his maps will preserve a record of the tragedy that transformed Ireland. But when an unsettling encounter in an ancient woodland disrupts his work and changes his behaviour, Liam finds himself struggling to understand his father while facing the daunting task of completing their mission. As their family’s story unfolds, buried secrets, lingering ghosts, and the enduring power of the Irish landscape reveal how the past continues to shape the present. Spanning generations and exploring the consequences of colonisation, famine, and displacement, Land is a sweeping historical novel about survival, family, and the profound connections between people and the places they call home. Maggie O’Farrell weaves Irish history with folklore and intimate human drama, creating a meditation on memory, belonging, and the ways landscapes preserve stories that history cannot erase.