24/7/26
An unnamed, remote, and windswept peninsula on the west coast of Ireland. The opening. chapters specifically feature a mapmaker and his young son charting this rugged Atlantic promontory in the aftermath of the Great Famine
The narrative then follows the family's journey spanning over several generations from this rural coastal setting to Dublin, Rome, Quebec, and Kerala
The book uses the science of the bog—where decaying moss preserves bodies for millennia—as a physical metaphor for memory.
We read about early inhabitants and a girl Brith whose father goes off and never returns, and when the crops fail and the cattle supper from bloating sickness. The committee decides that the remedy is a human sacrifice has to be given to the Gods and Brith is taken. Her dog tries to protect her but is killed and dumped into her grave. This evil sacrifice only bring evil upon them, with low harvests and they go searching for better lands, their fort they burn down and we see the ruins. This is during the time that the Romans were in England and assessed that the gains of taking Hibernia (Ireland) was not worthwhile. The Romans leave England in 407 ACE. Tribal rivalry in Ireland ends up inviting foreign forces, but all the land knows is that trees are felled to build and as firewood. The most loyal officers in the conquering army are given the land. They try to banish the local tongue.
Phina's father had gone abroad and would send them money for the passage.
Then the great hunger comes and people survive on shellfish and nettles, the second year of hunger they approach the Viscount for help but no help comes and the homes of those who can't pay rent are burned.
At the school the nuns had told Enda that if she worked hard she would one day be able to be a teacher but when they moved to the Peninsula no schooling was available for girls so that would not happen. She lost her friends, and future as she is a girl. The widow has a fiddle that she gives Enda who masters it and the local tunes of the area. The big dog comes from the copse and likes them and he becomes their protector named Bran (mythical king) The new brother is born, named Eugene after Phina's father who can hear but is mute. The presents of a new baby causes neighbors to react differently, positively.
Liam has an accident broke his shin and can't accompany his father to work. Enda dressed in his cloths goes with the father to the island to survey but he won't take her help as an apprentice, so she meets the people and makes music for the learning more songs, which she plays at weddings, wakes and dances. She collects tunes all over the country.
Rose remains illiterate and is the one who looks after the family especially after Phina dies. She is the angel of the family
Liam could have his father who loved him or the church that did not. Liam was the only one Tomas paid any attention.
The book starts in 1865 Scarlet jacketed soldiers employ Tomas on a mapping project, because he can speak the local language and measure, calculate and draft. They want to know who owns each field. records have to be updated since the great famine. He wants to train his son Liam as an apprentice as he does not want him cast out into the world with no prospects. No good will come of the maps but more taxes and tithes. They live in the digs of a widow. Only 4 dwelling are left her of what was a whole village. Tomas goes crazy and does not want the survey to get to the British but Liam completes the notes and gets the money from the British. Tomas was left starving in the streets and was saved by a Quaker who takes him to the orphanage "workhouse", he could never trace back to where he came from, but he could read and write and recite poetry in 3 languages. Phina's father had come to the workhouse to find Phina but she was registered as Francis and it was not realized.
The chain boy of the army survey unit had got drowned crossing a river and they needed to replace him so they came to the work house. Tomas got the job as he spoke out that he was good at English and math's. He could find out information in Irish from the locals. He figured how to work the theodolite. Now that Tomas had money he went to look for Phina who was about to be deported to Australia an managed to get her off the ship. They lived in slums in Dublin On returning from a survey Tomas told Phina he had bough a lease and the move to the peninsula.
Tomas always took Liam as his chain boy and Enda felt she should have a chance at that .
If Tomas registered the copse on the official map the property owner would fell the trees to sell as timber to squeeze the last shilling out of the land.
Canada is a place with no viscounts , no landlords sapping the lifeblood. By working the land made it more valuable and so the viscount wanted more rent. Thomas had a work accident and his hand got crushed a drunken doctor amputated his hand from the wrist. Later the had to amputate from it from the elbow. Tomas was always careful with his money and never a drinker. However if he cannot draw the country he will stride through it.
Liam has taken a vow of obedience and must go wherever they bid him. He is now father Gulielmus. One day he may be working in the Orders garden then at the school teaching mathematics or working on the translation of an ancient text. They are supposed to keep them selves apart and be leaders and saviors. He has learned to convers in Malayalam the language of Kerala. He is brought a premature born baby and is asked to use magic to make it live. Liam gets a letter a year old from Father Joseph that Tomas is dead but no reference to Enda why is she not mentioned. Strange that it was Father Joseph is the one to tell him. In Cochin a church is being build on the donations of ship merchants, spice traders adn tea plantation owners, surrounded by all this poverty. Liam was a priest till one day he was not.
Tomas was a man who only believed what was in front of him and didn't believe in the Kingdom of heaven as the priest said. Liam no longer believes in Purgatory , Hell ,Heaven. Father Joseph had wanted to separate Liam from Thomas. He had a youthful urge to set himself against his father He craves to see Enda again. His faith is mere topsoil and not bedrock. Liam trades his signet ring, a leather bound Bible and the Orders robe for civilian clothes. He finds that the prestige conferred on him as a Jesuit has gone. He is no one. He stays in Dublin to establish himself he does not want to return home as a defrocked priest. He gets a job at the Ordinance Office as a mathematician and experienced surveyor. He can't get a job as a teacher as he has no certificates. Liam gets a job at a good wage with the title of surveyor. Liam purchases the lease on a house and install tenants in the upper floors and he and wife living the basement. He now writes to his family in the peninsula and the letters are returned marked Gon away. He writes to the widow and father Joseph it is returned both deceased.
Enda has written to Rose but knows that Rose can't write. The money she arrived with was stolen from her. What is sad is Enda would have been a perfect apprentice as a surveyor as she was good at math's. She has had jobs playing for a dance or a wedding but she has a conscience that she has not thought about home enough and it less at ease with herself. Her music is connected to home and feels herself divided. She bumps into the man she met at Grosse Ile the one who had an accordion. Anatoly tells her that at home he was a teacher here he is a cook. he waits for her outside her rooming house. Enda was the only person travelling alone, she travelled as a boy with Liams documents. When spring comes Anatoli will go to the logging camp to fell trees as he must save money to bring his parents and remaining siblings to Canada. he will cut Douglas fir western hemlock, red cedar, spruce , pine fir, ironwood hop hornbeam white larch. Anatoli leaves the Accordion with Rose and says at the end of summer he will return and marry her. No mail can come in or out of the logging camp. Anatoli has been killed trying to free jammed tree trunks in the river. She is told she can send the accordion to Anatoli's wife and 2 children.
There is a man playing the Irish bagpipe who Enda passes not knowing it is her grandfather. The whole country is full of homesick people. She received a letter that is short and tell her her father has passed away it comes from Father Joseph but why nothing on Rose and Eugene. Enda feel ill from depression and her landlady leaves her knowing that there is typhoid and diphtheria about.
Rose and Eugene are working to bring in the wheat harvest and then cut the widows field also. Eugene has the strength of 3 men. The family had been 6 and now they are just 2. With the death of Tomas the widow wants them to move in with her, to avoid loneliness. Neither of her parents had spoken about the hungry times, they had no cousins grandparents. She knew from Phina that Tomas had rescued her from a terrible fate. Around them were deserted homes and they felt the rootlessness.
A raven leaving the ground on which you walk means death before midnight.(Superstition) No eggs have been laid today. 2 men are wondering about one is the viscounts eldest son. They are mistreating a puppy and she calls out about this. She runs but they catch her and force open her legs. Bran arrives and attacks them but they shoot the dog. Eugene arrives with a spade and smashes the viscounts son and his friend heads and faces. The widow arrives and sends Eugene to fetch the slipe. (sled). The push the bodies off the cliff and make it appear that the fell to their deaths. The widow gives them money that would be left to them in any case on her death and says you must take yourselves off tonight Now. First her own children and now these ones too many ending , too many leavings.
As the ship is passing the last of Ireland Eugene jumps overboard and 4 men stop Rose from following the boy into the sea.
Enda hears a continuous knocking and it is Rose with a puppy that looks like Bran.
When Liam gets to the peninsula he discovers the area is under a distant cousin of the Viscount who is an absentee landlord. He goes into the copse then there is a movement and he flees. We now learn that Eugene survived and swam from the ship and lives in the abandoned house. The path has been blocked because there is a gruagach who resides on the hill. The locals know that they must put offering for the gruagach who will leave something for them Eugene lives long enough to see the manor estates to be dissolved and the land redistributed.
Note In Scotland between 1760 till and 1886 crofters were being evicted by landlords to make space for sheep farming. Many of the crofters went to Canada.
Great Famine in Ireland from 1845 to 1852. Before the famine the population was 8.2 million. Afterward it was 6.5 million but with continuous migration it dropped to 3.2 million in 1931. In the 1960 it reached 2.8 million. 2021 including the north it is now 7.5 million
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