'If you've lived in the North, you'll recognise the sticking plaster approach to issues'

In the late 1950s, Terrence O’Neill proposed draining Lough Neagh to create a seventh county for the North. In Jan Carson's latest novel, she imagines a scenario where the drainage scheme goes ahead, serving as a refuge for people fleeing the Troubles. Here, the author explains how the novel merges fact with fiction

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 26th March 2026 Author Jan Carson Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye

In December 2022, I was deep into a four-month residency in France and struggling with writers’ block. Two days before Christmas, a helpful friend sent me an email, entitled: “This sounds like something you’d write about.”

The seed of an idea