Small Things Like These

So my sister Claire handed me 'Small Things Like These' by Claire Keegan saying it was a quick read for while I was visiting. The covers are smothered in very high praise indeed and I think I will be tracking down one of her short story collections some time soon. Narrated during 1985 (but for rural Ireland read some time back in the dark ages) it tells a brief story of Furlong, a coal merchant in a small town, the town where he lives and works, and the history of his own unorthodox arrival. I have mentioned previously the catholicism that tends to permeate Irish writing; sometimes it just sits there in the background, unspoken but ever present, but here the influence of the church over people's lives is brought starkly into the light. It is such a perfect little book, capturing this moment in time, the relationships between people in the close knit community and within Furlong's family, but mostly we follow Furlong though his days, with the thoughts he has as he drives his delivery lorry. In the course of his busy pre-Christmas week he calls at the convent and on unlocking the coal shed discovers a young girl inside. As he takes her indoors she begs him to find out what has become of her baby. The incident is brushed over by the Mother Superior and the cleaned and redressed girl informs him it was a childish prank. His discomfort about the event is increased when the woman at the cafe tells him she heard of his encounter at the convent and reminds him that access to the secondary school his older daughters attend is controlled by the church: "'They belong to different orders,' she went on, ' but believe you me, they're all the one. You can't side against one without damaging your chances with the other.'" (p.95) But his own history had been playing on his mind, the fact his own mother had been unwed, and was cared for and protected by her (Protestant) employer, and he begins to question things he had previously taken for granted:

"At some point later, an upstairs curtain moved, and a child looked out. He made himself reach for the key, and started the engine. Driving back out to the road, he pushed his fresh concerns aside and thought back over the girl at the convent. What most tormented him was not so much how she'd been left in the coal shed or the stance of the Mother Superior; the worst was how the girl had been handled while he was present and how he'd allowed that and had not asked about her baby - the one thing she had asked him to do - and how he had taken the money and left her there at the table with nothing before her and the breast milk leaking under the little cardigan and staining her blouse, and how he'd gone on, like a hypocrite, to Mass." (p.87)

The novella ends with a page about the Magdalen laundries, the last of which were not closed until 1996, where many thousands of women were incarcerated for the crime of having a child out of wedlock. Many babies died and many more were adopted out. They were financed and run by the Catholic Church in concert with the Irish government. I had a child before I was married in 1988. In my hospital ward of four women three of us were unmarried. No one batted an eyelid. News in recent days reported that statistics for 2021 show more than half of all children were born outside of marriage or a civil partnership.

Stay safe. Be kind. Have a baby when and how it suits you (or not as the case may be).