Immersed in the contemporary settings of her novels, it’s easy to forget the control that the Catholic Church once exercised over Ireland. In the cosmopolitan Ireland of blockbuster millennial novelist Sally Rooney, the main issues are capitalism and class rather than religion and religious institutions. A late contender for one of my 2022 books of the year – it did make the list actually – I highly recommend adding it to your reading list.In Claire Keegan’s novella of Ireland in the 1980s, a good man faces a testing decision.
It blends historical facts with fiction for a story I’ll remember. Small Things Like These is a story about how we all have the power to change things, if we’re brave enough to stand up for what’s right. As we all know though, it’s not always easy to do the right thing, even when we know we should. When Bill stumbles across something he shouldn’t while delivering coal, he is faced with adhering to society norms and looking away, or listening to his conscience and doing the right thing. Shockingly, the last of these institutions only closed in 1996. Unwed mothers or ‘promiscuous’ women were sent to homes run by nuns and essentially treated like prisoners.
The conflict in the story comes in relation to the Magdalene Laundries scandal – a dark, shameful part of Ireland’s history. Why could he not relax and enjoy them like other men who took a pint or two after Mass before falling asleep at the fire with the newspaper, having eaten a plate of dinner? Sundays could feel very threadbare, and raw. It truly makes this a unique, memorable read. I really love Claire Keegan’s writing style, it is poetic yet precise and just so engaging.
His moments of ponder and reflection are ones we can all relate to and cut so deep. We take in life from his point of view and so much is said in the nuanced flow of William’s daily activities. He lives with his wife Eileen and their five daughters in a small village in Ireland. Small Things Like These takes place in 1985 and our lead character is William (Bill) Furlough, a coal and timber merchant. In this week between Christmas and New Year, it’s the perfect time for a festive tale that has both the dark and light sides of any good story set around this time of year.
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