In her new book, Few and Far Between, Northern Irish writer Jan Carson imagines a world where Lough Neagh - the largest lake in Ireland and the UK - becomes home to a disparate community seeking refuge from the Troubles.
The idea for the novel was inspired by a real but unrealised proposition made in 1958, by then Minister for Finance Terence O’Neill. The fourth Prime Minister of Northern Ireland believed draining the lake could solve unemployment in the north and create a seventh county.
In Carson’s novel, the water is partly drained from the lake, uncovering an archipelago of islands, which eventually become inhabited by those hoping to escape the violence and unrest brought on by the Troubles.
It’s a story of memory, belonging and how communities try to create safe spaces in difficult times, much of which was inspired by Carson’s experience growing up and the “Troubles related trauma” that many in the North endure.
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On the latest episode of The Irish Times Women’s Podcast, Carson details how this trauma can take many forms, but all stems back to a “culture of violence and anger and rage”.
“I’ve had a number of conversations since this book came out about how, particularly in the North, we have an awful tendency to separate trauma into Troubles related trauma and other kinds of trauma. And actually, I think a lot of people are coming to see that all of that is related”.
“It does not surprise me that we have these very high rates of violence against women, because we had a culture for fifty years where, men thought that shouting and lifting a gun and being violent was a way to, to get their message across or to get their own way,” she tells podcast presenter Róisín Ingle.
In this wide-ranging discussion, the writer also talks about her childhood growing up in a presbyterian fundamentalist family, what her faith means to her now and how she can write a book in just six weeks.
You can listen back to their conversation in the player above or search The Women’s Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
