The Irish men who mapped the British Empire

A new book by Charles Drazin from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) takes the reader on a historical journey from a small village in rural Ireland to the farthest flung outposts of the early twentieth century British empire. Mapping the Past begins with the death of Charles? Irish-born mother; Patsy. The book tells the story of five young Royal Engineers - the author's grandfather and great uncles - as they travelled the globe mapping the British Empire, in the height of its pre-war pomp. 'I knew very little about my mother's childhood in Ireland, and almost nothing about her father Patrick. I was aware that he'd been a Royal Engineer, and I knew of course that he was Irish - but I had no idea what a fascinating life Patrick and his brothers led, and I had only the vaguest sense of how Patrick's death affected and stayed with my mother,' said Charles. When his mother died, Charles began to go through the relics of her life. They included a box of old photographs, a battered suitcase stamped with the initials of the grandfather he had never known, and the service records of Patrick's brothers, who, like him, had all enlisted in the Royal Engineers as the nineteenth century became the twentieth.