Maggie O'Farrell's "The Hand" explores famine, history, and Ireland's "inherent stories"

Maggie O'Farrell, acclaimed for her novel and screenplay "Hamnet," delves into Ireland's tumultuous past with her latest work, "The Hand." The novel uses the Great Famine (An Gorta Mór) of 1845-1850 as a central backdrop, a period that saw a million deaths and widespread evictions.

The narrative is deeply rooted in the concept of "dinnsheanchas," an ancient Irish idea that translates to "the place's inherent story" or "topography." O'Farrell explores how myths and legends serve as a way to navigate and understand space, suggesting that every location holds its own narrative.

The inspiration for "The Hand" struck O'Farrell when she learned about her great-grandfather's role as a land surveyor. Working under the British colonial administration, he was tasked with mapping the west coast of Ireland. This process involved the erasure of original Irish place names and their replacement with Anglicized versions, effectively silencing the historical and cultural narratives embedded in the landscape.

This cartographic endeavor by colonial powers coincided with the devastating famine, which landlords used as a pretext to evict more tenants, replacing them with sheep. The period also marked the beginning of a significant wave of European migration to the United States. O'Farrell's novel begins twenty years after the famine, focusing on a surveyor named Tomás and his son Liam as they map a peninsula on the west coast, a region strikingly similar to the Dingle Peninsula.