Land

PART I

In 1865, mapmaker Tomas travels with his ten-year-old son Liam to a remote peninsula on the western edge of Europe. Tomas has been hired by British government soldiers—“redcoats”—to survey and revise maps of the land as part of a vast colonial mapping project. His value lies in his fluency in both English and Gaelic, as well as his exceptional penmanship and artistic skill. These talents rescued him years earlier from a famine-era workhouse, where he had been apprenticed after being found begging as a child, with no memory of his family or early life.

It was in that workhouse that Tomas met Seraphina (Phina), whom he later married. Together they dreamed of escape and eventually built a family. They now have three children: Enda, Liam, and Rose, with Phina pregnant again. Enda and Rose remain in Dublin with their mother while Tomas and Liam work on the peninsula. Liam is unlike his father. He lacks interest or aptitude for surveying and finds the work dull and exhausting. Enda, by contrast, would have relished the adventure. One rainy day, bored and restless, Liam wanders into a nearby copse, loses a boot in the marsh, and becomes separated from Tomas. After a long, frightening absence, Liam returns alone to their lodging, run by a widow. Tomas does not return until the following day, when two fishermen are sent to find him.

They discover Tomas naked, wild-eyed, and crowned with leaves and twigs. He speaks in riddles, claiming to have drunk from a spring in the copse and to have been enlightened. He insists the old maps should be burned and proposes drawing a new kind of map, one that reveals deeper truths. He wants Liam’s help.