Maggie O’Farrell: ‘Fiction comes from what you don’t know’

From a young age, the author was told that one of her ancestors had drawn some of the first maps of Ireland. Then she found a photograph, and embarked on a journey to discover his story Every family has its myths. In mine, we were told that one of our antecedents had worked on the first maps of Ireland. As a child, I used to picture a solitary person in unspecified period dress – a tailcoat, perhaps some kind of cravat – striding pensively about fields and mountains, pen in hand. On summer holidays, I would stare out of the window of our red car as Donegal or Galway rolled by and wonder that such a task could be achieved. How did one man set about drawing a map of a whole country, of these towns and strands and trees and rivers?All myths comprise a great deal of fanciful embroidery through which runs the distinct thread of truth: time and retelling will always refract reality. This mapper preyed on my mind. I thought about him, always, when I travelled