Even in the final lines of the miniature masterpiece that is Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan continues her painstaking application of multiple layers: “…his fear more than outweighed every other feeling but in his foolish heart he not only hoped but legitimately believed that they would manage.”

That “legitimately” contains echoes of the “illegitimate” (non-marital) status that was so powerful a force in marking children in Irish society up to recent decades, a status that applied to Bill Furlong, the central character of this novella, and to whose troubled yet generous thoughts we are given access.

Furlong’s mother had become pregnant at 16 while unmarried but her comparatively wealthy Protestant employer, Mrs Wilson, had let her continue working and keep the child, an unusual course in those times. His mother died when he was twelve and he was never told who his father was.

The story is set in a biggish town, New Ross, Co. Wexford (near Colm Tóibín territory) in 1985 at a time when layoffs and closures are common and poverty is rising - “a young schoolboy eating from a chip bag that had been thrown down on the street the night before.” But Furlong is the very hands-on owner of a comparatively successful fuel delivery business - “He’d a head for business, and was known for getting along…he had developed good Protestant habits; was given to rising early and has no taste for drink.” However, his profits are quite modest - possibly because he is prepared to extend charity - and a lorry upgrade will mean postponement of home improvement. Furlong is unhappy about this as he is very close to his wife and five daughters. Keegan builds up the homely situation around Furlong very convincingly, using the limited space to find telling dialogue or situations. The night of the letters to Santa is perfectly used in this regard.

But it is Furlong’s interaction with an inmate of the nearly Mother and Bay home, which operates a Magdalen laundry, that is the dramatic lynchpin of the story. As Keegan notes in a short “Note on the Text,” “…the Mother and Baby Home Commission Report found that nine thousand children died in just eighteen of the institutions investigated.” The last one did not change until 1996, but the novella, wisely, does not give any coverage to the overall picture, only what Furlong encounters and sees.

While Furlong had been generous to the less well-off and was happy with his family, he is also troubled, in a way that John McGahern, whose successor Keegan is often considered to be (which ignores her magic/supernatural strand), might have written: “Always it was the same, Furlong thought; always they carried mechanically on, without pause, to the next job at hand.” His wife senses that his mind is moving more profoundly and tells him: “Where does thinking get us?…All thinking does is bring you down.”

When his encounter with the suicidal and dehumanised inmate of the Mother and Baby home, who did not have the chance his mother had and whose baby will not have the good fortune he had, leads to his politely challenging the Reverend Mother, he is subtly undermined. She is the only one who calls him “Billy,” reducing his status and refers innocently to the benefits his daughters are getting and will get from being educated in the Convent school run by the same order of nuns, who could withdraw such benefits, an unspoken threat. She also gets a bush telegraph into operation and Furlong is subsequently well-warned in various understated ways..

But the frustration and self-questioning that had been building up, lead to a decisiveness on Furlong’s part after he gets a possible insight into his origins.

There has been an awareness all through the book of disparities of wealth and in the final page there is a striking image of Furlong with a box of shoes for his wife’s Christmas present and a barefoot girl.

As well as being so well-written, this is also a compulsive and unforgettable read.