'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