A poetic, slice-of-life look at life in 1980s Ireland, focusing especially on the role of religion in public and private life. Beautiful and simple, but best for those comfortable with books with fairly scant plot.

Wonderfully evocative story about a man who was born to a young single mother, both taken in and looked after by a nearby wealthy Protestant woman. Set in 1985 in a small town in Ireland Bill Furlong sells coal and the first third of this book sets up his world and his life. He is a very ordinary man and yet also unusual in being a responsible happy man who cares for his wife and their five daughters. An encounter delivering coal to the local convent, opens his eyes to the horrors of what we now know as the Magdalen laundries and unsettles him. Fiction that also works as social history humanising the terrible things that happened to thousands of women and children.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A short but powerful book about one man's ordinary life working in an Irish town in 1985. An ordinary man who does an extraordinary act of kindness. Incredibly moving with understated but exquisite writing, Small Things Like These is a triumph.

This was a beautifully written story with a protagonist who is both admirable and courageous.

The descriptions were wrought with empathy and finesse. I could feel the cold and fatigue Bill experienced during his long days delivering coal and firewood to his customers. Also, I could easily imagine his wife Eileen, and family of girls baking for Christmas in their homely kitchen.

The story was riddled with Irish slang sayings such as "If you don't mind out, you'll meet yourself coming."

It speaks to the everyday worries and thoughts of a regular working man as he, though bone-tired, lies awake in his bed.

"Some nights, Furlong lay there with Eileen, going over small things like these."

Given that the plot is set during the week before Christmas, it is an excellent read to remind us of just how privileged and well off we are. It particularly relays the message that doing the 'right' thing is not always easy.

And speaking of easy, this gem of a little book gets an easy five stars from me.

I waited a while to read this book as i knew it set around Christmas time.. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan didn’t disappoint. Not what I was expecting but I was blown away. . It is a short novel but boy does it pack a punch.

Small Things Like These is set in an Irish town in 1985 in the lead up Christmas. Bill Furlong, a father of five daughters is a coal merchant, raised by a single mother who was a housemaid for an upper class woman who allowed her to keep her son with her. The story recalls an event that occurs at the nearby convent, when Bill is making his deliveries and we observe different members of the community’s reaction to that.

Irish literature Magdalen laundries shaming mothers religious oppressionI admire the way Claire Keegan creates atmosphere and a sense of place, I could well imagine the small Irish town they lived, the cold, the workplace, the river – although I had to keep reminding myself it was the 1980’s and that there was electricity. Bill’s deliveries of wood and coal and the way the women made it feel like a much earlier era, though I don’t doubt it was freezing then as few could afford to heat their homes by other means.

The character of Bill Furlong was interesting and held potential, both due to the unique circumstance of his upbringing, which made him an empathetic character, and the fact that his wife and other women in the community had a different opinion or perception to his, regarding the situation that he will be confronted with.

The blow was cheap but it was the first he’d heard from her, in all their years together. Something small and hard gathered in his throat then which he tried but felt unable to say or swallow. In the finish, he could neither swallow it down nor find any words to ease what had come between them.

magdalen laundries adoption Ireland patriarchy
Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.com

Furlong was one of very, very few babies born to a woman out out wedlock who got to stay with his mother, due to the generosity of his mother’s employer.

When we meet him he is a grown married man with daughters, with his own business, though still struggling and not able to imagine a time when that might change. There is something in him that is unsettled despite his circumstance, something slowly revealed that he seeks liberation from.

On making a delivery to the nearby convent, where his daughters are at school, he becomes aware of the fact there are other young women there, who work with the nuns and provide the community with laundry services.

It is a subtly consciousness raising novel yet somewhat ironic and convenient to this reader that the empathetic character is a working man with daughters. While the story conveniently sidesteps the significant issues, it takes a provocative stance in choosing to instill empathy in a character, who represents generally, the one we never look at – the boy involved, the father or brother who punished their daughter/sister, or the decision maker’s of the institutions (church and state) that carried out the punishment of these young women. In this respect, the premise of the novel feels totally unrealistic, a Disney-like fantasy. The reality is that it is very likely no one ever did was Bill purports to do here.

Claire Keegan Small Things Like These Men With EmpathyIt made me recall another character, Albert, from the film Made in Dagenham, who was initially the only man who supported a group of female factory workers fighting for equal rights at the Ford Dagenham factory in 1968 – the reason he supported them was because he had been raised by a single mother – perhaps there is something to be said for the development of a deeper empathy in men who’ve been raised by single mothers.

One of the other things that did stand out was the prevalence and contribution of community gossip to the development of judgement and insinuation. He is warned by the woman running the café where his men eat lunch.

‘Tis no affair of mine, you understand, but you know you’d want to watch over what you’d say about what’s there?’

Those that listen to and contribute to gossip are of a different kind than those who respond to an injustice that was right in front of them, despite it being none of their business. Bill was of the latter.

Overall, I felt like this novel had only just begun and then it was over; it left me with too many questions and felt like it was set in a time that was decades earlier than the 1985. It read more like a promising beginning, than a complete novel. Deliberately provocative perhaps.

This is a short but powerful story about families, love, bad deeds, good deeds and how we all should do the right thing, even if it might be difficult.

It is set in 1980s Dublin and follows Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, just before Christmas. Thanks to the kindness of others (and lots of hard work) he has a good life but also feels like he is always moving onto the next thing without enjoying the moment. Reflecting on his experiences leads him to push back against the rule of the Church and do an amazing good deed.

As I said, it is a very short story (I read it in about an hour!) and to say much more would give more of the details away. But I really enjoyed a peak into Bill’s life and I only wish I could have found what happened next. I will have to imagine a hopeful outcome.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

This book is beautiful. At once tender, thought provoking, understated but somehow punches you in the gut if you're awake enough to realise the message.
It's an utter delight and the emotions it stirs with its fantastic prose. I really can't praise this book high enough. Perfect for xmas. Exactly the right message that has got so buried under consumerism. I truly loved it

Small Things Like These is a short, powerful read, one that will linger in the mind for a long time. The author has dedicated it to the “women and children who suffered time in Ireland’s Magdalen laundries” and her afterword provides a brief history for those who aren’t aware of these scandalous Catholic institutions that housed unwed mothers and abused them.

Small things like these tells the story of Bill Furlong - born to a single mother and raised by her while she was living and working for the well off and supportive Mrs Wilson. Furlong is now grown and has a wife for 4 daughters and runs a business selling and distributing coal. He delivers coal to a church/nunnery one day and finds a girl who has been working in the laundry left in the coalshed overnight. Furlong can see that this girl could have been his mother if it weren't for Mrs Wilson and he feels that he needs to help her. But it going against the church an advisible thing to do?
Loved this novella - its only 128 pages so a really quick read but it packs a punch. I'd definitely recomend it.

Beautifully written, this novella speaks volumes in a quiet, understated kind of way but the reader is left in no doubt as to the huge power behind those words. The story is set in 1985, but I had to remind mysefl of that on occasion, some of the attitudes could have come from years earlier. The main character, Bill Furlong, is wonderfully drawn we can all hope there are more like him in the real world. This was the overarching message of this marvellous book, there is always hope. Just read it.

A short, tender novel set in 1980s Ireland. It is almost Christmas, the cold nights are drawing in and another year of hard work is almost done. While most of the town's residents are looking forward to a well deserved rest. however, William - or Furlong, as he is generally referred to - has more existential thoughts on his mind. Is this it, this repetitive life of grinding toil, putting one automatic foot in front of the other as he delivers timber and coal to the town's mostly grateful inhabitants? His wife certainly thinks it is, and his daughters seem happy enough. There are people much worse off than them, he is reminded, and it doesn't do to question too much. Eileen is hoping for a new handbag and matching shoes, and their girls have been primed on precisely how much they might request in their letters to Santa. But as he completes the last rounds of the year, Furlong reflects on his childhood, his ignoble and potentially doomed start and the small risks that were taken on his behalf. And when he encounters someone less fortunate than he now is, he decides that he too must take a step, however minor. A warm, beautiful story about goodness, and finding the strength to raise your head above the parapet.

A snapshot at only about 120 pages, Small Things Like These nonetheless manages to cut to the heart of small town life and rural Ireland in the 1980’s. The protagonist, Billy Furlong brings to mind the leading men of many of Donal Ryan’s novels; he is hardworking, loyal, sensitive, and in ways is too soft for the world around him. Bill’s wife is quick to point out that he is generous to a fault, works himself too hard and could be easily taken advantage of. However, we are left in no doubt that this is a noble quality in a cynical world, and that no one is too small to make a difference.

Billy reflects on his life in a small town at Christmas, the local coal and timber merchant who goes above and beyond in ensuring that everyone has what they need to get through another winter. He has a good, honest life, despite his start. His mother, an employee at the Big House was pregnant and thankfully taken in by her employer, Mrs White, saving her from the Mother and Baby home and her son from growing up an orphan and in an institution. While he grew up in a stable, safe home, he is always aware that he doesn’t know who his father is, and worries about how to be a good father himself. The book ends with him trying to be like Mrs White in risking gossip and trouble by trying to save another lost soul. The sense of right and wrong is Billy’s primary concern and also a focus of the novella.

The story is succinct and “tidy” but the shadow of institutional greed and abuse looms large over the small town. The ending is left open but is nonetheless a call to arms and reminder that the past is still the present, and the collective responsibility and shame over the secrecy that allowed so many women and children to be wronged in Ireland’s recent past. I can imagine this book being taught in secondary school as a clear but compelling reminder to us now that in small inslular communities or in the easy, safe anonymity of big cities that we should still look out for each other when the power systems that are supposed to look after the weakest in society fails us.

Title: Small Things Like These
By: Claire Keegan
Published by: Faber and Faber
Genre: Adult Fiction/Literary Fiction
Pub Date 21 Oct 2021 |
Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4318740888


There is not much I can say about this book, not because it was bad, I actually liked it, but it's so short that almost every word I wright might be considered a spoiler. I promise to do my best.

Keegan describes the idyllic Irish life so well you almost forget her dedication at the front of the book. We are swept up in her description of this small town that can almost seem like eons ago and at the same time just a decade or so. We follow Bill and his life, switching between the current day, which is set in 1985 and his childhood, perhaps around the 1950's. In some ways his life has been blessed but not without hardship. Yet if there is one person in the town to be known for their kindness it is Bill Furlong. And that is exactly why he is the main character. We watch as he struggles to decide if he should act with kindness, or keep to himself for the sake of conforming to social convention. Help someone less fortunate or incur the wrath of society?!

This book is powerful in the way that it contrasts the beauty of the country with the ugliness of it's society. The faces who smile back at you when you meet them in the street but are self serving in private. The culture that said " love they neighbor" and yet ignored those most in need. Said "judge not lest you be judge", yet acted as judge, jury and executioner all because they had the power to.

Any one reading this book should find it easy to pick up on the abuse women suffered and suffer. This is a skilled piece of (in my opinion) feminist work. Keegan doesn't need to may it loud and brash, she lets the truth do the work.

It is impossible for any feeling human to come away from reading this book with no emotions. I had to wait days just to be able to write a coherent review.

My only complaint about this work is that I wanted to know what happened to Bill, his family and his new friend. There was no way this went without consequences. Even though Keegan broke my heart and left me in a dark void with no answers I have to give this a five.

Thanks to Faber for letting me read Small Things Like These. It is a short, impactful novella - honestly took me about fifty minutes to read - centring on Furlong, an Irish man living in a small town in the 1980s who has begun to notice something dodgy going on up at the convent. Although I thought some elements of this novella were done really well - his sense of existential panic, the questions over his parentage, the menacing nun - ultimately I did feel like it was too short. Things can only be as long as they're going to be, but there was so much happening in this story that I would have felt much more satisfied with a full-length novel.

‘What it is to be a man,’ she said, ‘and to have days off.’

I started Small Things Like These having no preconceptions, knowing nothing about what was in store for me. I have previously read a short story by Claire Keegan- The Forester's Daughter- which is part of the Faber Stories collection, and I remembered enjoying it- but otherwise I had no idea what to expect. I’m reluctant to give too much away, because I really loved going into the story blind. So I’ll say now, that if you want have that experience stop reading here…Okay so. The story is relatively simple and the book itself is very short. It follows a man living in Co. Wexford in Ireland in 1985, who is having, what could perhaps be described as, a crisis of identity. He’s becoming disillusioned with his life, his wife- he begins to question aspects of his upbringing, his religion. (There is definitely a Dickensian aura to Bill, our central figure, there’s even a reference to A Christmas Carol, and at times, Bill’s morality and upstanding nature can feel Victorian and out of place in the world he’s inhabiting.) The central premise being that his Mother fell pregnant with him out of wedlock, and he’s never known who his father was, and both he and his mother were looked after by a wealthy Protestant woman whom Bill’s mother worked for. Keegan is providing a perspective on the Mother and Baby homes that I haven’t seen before. The perspective of someone who is thankful for the life he has, and painfully aware of the route it could have taken- Bill is desperately searching for the right thing to do to repay the kindness that was shown to him. The book, I think, is filled with fear and unrest, but the ending is shrouded in hope. Our protagonist sees his own Mother in the young women he encounters at the local convent/laundry, and feels a sense of responsibility for them, I think he also finds purpose in this mission- I wonder if Keegan is trying to make a point about male saviorism, or if I’m projecting? (Is saviorism even a word?!) The writing is fantastic, the way Keegan evokes the weather, natural world and landscape is captivating, especially at this time a year, I *felt* so much of what she described. I’d really love to read more of her work, I found Keegan’s style really engaging and accessible + it helped that the subject was something that is very close to home for me and a part of a history I’m interested in.

This is a beautiful little novella from Clare Keegan, is an instant classic and just my kind of Christmas story. I made myself a cup of tea and sat by the log burner last weekend to read it in one sitting. The story is beautifully set in mid-1980’s Ireland, so vividly described I would almost expect these people to really exist. Bill Furlong is a Coal and Timber merchant, getting ready for his busiest season of the year. He is taking a delivery up to the local convent, but what he finds there will make him question himself and his community. He is a Catholic, but he has a moral compass that’s not strictly influenced by the church. When younger he was influenced by a mentor who taught him two great qualities, kindness in all things and restraint from judging others. In the coal house he finds a cold, terrified and shaven-headed girl. He is horrified by her treatment, but is given the explanation of a game of hide and seek gone wrong, which he accepts. Yet the image of that girl haunts his brain. Around him, the family are getting ready for Christmas, icing cakes and writing cards. In fact the home is a picture of Yuletide industry, but he is unable to join in, with the truth of what he and the other locals have turned a blind eye to, eating away at him. He isn’t sure he can look away any more. The description of this part of Ireland was so real, and I loved the backdrop of the preparations for Christmas (often the best bit of the holiday). These people are not rich, but see the importance of keeping family rituals and traditions. I loved the way his wife tries to be the voice of reason - he’s thinking of taking on the Catholic Church and they are the family’s pathway to eternal life. Not to mention their source of help, if they need anything in this life. The locals are complicit because they too feel beholden to the church. Many parishioners are out of work and unable to pay their bills. Bill’s wife begs him to think about the people he is responsible for. Surely his first duty is to his own family? But Bill knows his conscience won’t rest until he’s helped the girl.
The author doesn’t preach at us, but she doesn’t have to. The facts speak for themselves. It’s hard to imagine that the Catholic Church treated women in this judgemental way, all the way up to 1996. This is a terrible stain on Ireland’s history and I loved the way one man’s conscience brings the meaning of Christmas alive within this history. A beautiful and moving novella.

I can see the word ‘gem’ being used for every review of this book, so am reluctant to use myself but it’s the best description. This really is a perfect gem of a book, beautifully written with not a word wasted. It’ll stay with me for a long time & I’ll be recommending to all.

A short and quiet book telling an important story. It’s length only makes the emotions more impactful. Beautifully written, full of humanity.

Set in the mid-eighties at a time of great instability and economic insecurity in Ireland this is a wonderful portrait of a man who defies societal expectation and dares to confront the authority of the Catholic Church.
Bill is a coal merchant. He’s married with five daughters and it’s almost Christmas. Whilst making a delivery to the local convent he encounters a teenage girl locked in the coal shed. He is told she was accidentally shut in. But rumours about the convent are rife in town – it’s a well-known secret that unwed mothers are confined there - and he feels deep unease about leaving the girl behind.
Bill himself was born out of wedlock but his mother was shown great kindness and over the course of this beautiful little book his mind returns to the past. As he mulls on the dilemma of what to do, we are also invited vividly into the present - the traditions of Christmas, love and conflict within family, the poverty and hardship of Bill’s customers and employees are all brought into sharp focus.
It's a flawlessly written and important book. Not a word is wasted. Highly recommended.