Intelligence Squared An Evening with Maggie O’Farrell: Land (Part Two)
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Jul 12, 2026 
Maggie O’Farrell, award-winning novelist of Hamnet and author of the new multigenerational Land, discusses bringing 19th-century Ireland to life. She talks about mapping and deep history, sacred wells and folklore, structure and silence in storytelling, language and dialogue choices, and the challenges of adapting novels for screen.
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Peninsula As A Microscope Of Deep History
- Maggie O'Farrell treats the peninsula as a microcosm to tell Ireland's full history, stretching narratives back to the Bronze Age and even a clause to the Ice Age.
- She used the National Archaeology Museum and finds from turf diggers to anchor deep-time detail while keeping most research implicit in the prose.
Silence Turns Character Into Listener
- O'Farrell foregrounds silence and listening as narrative tools, making a largely silent character into an acute observer who "hears the land."
- Her childhood exposure to Irish myths taught her to treat landscape as animate, so wells, trees and birds carry story agency in Land.
Birds And Animals Echo Early Maps
- O'Farrell borrows mapping imagery by including a bird's-eye perspective and living animals to mirror early cartographic tropes.
- The skylark and an inexplicable dog function like heraldic or guiding presences, echoing map ornamentation and viewpoint.
