In the winter of 1847, the Star of the Sea sets sail from Ireland for New York. Among the refugees are a maidservant, a bankrupt aristocrat, an aspiring novelist and a maker of revolutionary ballads. It reads like a Victorian gothic novel, with murder and intrigue at its heart.

Star of the Sea by Joseph O’Connor was published in 2002 and attracted multiple plaudits as well as literary awards. O’Connor talks about the shocked response from his publishers when he proposed writing a novel about the Irish Famine and we learn how real facts are woven skilfully into fiction.

Novelist Colm Tóibín explains how there are elements of pastiche in Star of the Sea and how it’s written like a 19th century novel. He also states that, at a time when the Irish narrative was being re-imagined, even the great Irish playwrights such as Sean O’Casey didn’t write about the Famine.

At the heart of the story is the threatening figure of Pius Mulvey – the balladeer and adventurer. Known as ‘The Monster’, Mulvey stalks the decks of the ship like some kind of embodiment of the tragedy that has overtaken the old country. We hear about the tragic and human stories within this novel into which O’Connor is also able weave humour and a propulsive narrative.

John Yorke explains that the skill of this novel is that, with the aid of eyewitness accounts, historical documents, letters home, passenger manifests and Captain’s logs, O’Connor unravels the extraordinary relationships at the book’s heart by re-stitching them into a grander tapestry – that of a terrible horror, long hidden, central to a nation’s heart.

John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless.  As creator of the BBC Writers Academy, he's trained a generation of screenwriters - now with over 70 green lights and thousands of hours of television to their names.  He is the author of Into the Woods, the bestselling book on narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of narrative - including many podcasts for R4.

Contributor: Colm Tóibín, bestselling writer

Extracts from: The Arts Show, BBC Radio Ulster with Marie Louise Muir, 16 August 2007 Reading from Star of the Sea by Peter Marinker, from the audiobook of the same title published by W.F. Howes Ltd, 2011

Star of the Sea published in 2002 by Secker and Warburg

Sound: Sean Kerwin Researcher: Henry Tydeman Production Hub Coordinator: Nina Semple Producer: Belinda Naylor Executive Producer: Caroline Raphael

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4