Indeed, Bill’s mother was a single mum, a perfect candidate for the Magdalene system.įurlong had come from nothing. He’s deeply moved and can’t turn a blind eye to this young woman’s predicament. One day, Bill finds a girl hidden in the convent’s coal shed who asks him about her baby. They were workhouses with terrible living conditions. In Ireland, they lasted from 1765 to 1998 according to Wikipedia and were run by the Catholic Church with the approval of the Irish government. The Magdalen Asylums were convents where “fallen” girls were sent and worked for their keep as laundresses. His days are long as he delivers coal supplies to his clients before the holidays.Īmong Bill’s clients is the local Magdalene Asylum. He runs his company while his wife Eileen runs the house and takes care of their five children.

It’s a busy time for Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man. Small Things Like These is set in New Ross, Ireland, in the weeks before Christmas.

I didn’t like Foster that much when I read it and never tried another book by Claire Keegan after.

As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him - and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church.I owe Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan to my KUBE libraire. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. And then a secret is revealed and suddenly, she realizes how fragile her idyll is. In the strangers' house, she finds a warmth and affection she has not known before and slowly begins to blossom in their care. Claire Keegan's mesmeric story takes us into the heart of the Wicklow countryside, and of the farming family of Victor Deegan, with his 'three teenagers, the milking and the mortgage'.Ī small girl is sent to live with foster parents on a farm in rural Ireland, without knowing when she will return home. This dog will break her daughter's heart, she's sure of it. She watches the dog licking the bowl clean. In the sky a few early stars are shining of their own accord. In 'House Calls', Cordelia wakes on the last day ofthe twentieth century and sets off along the coast road to keep a date with her lover that has been nine years in the waiting. From the opening story about a married woman who takes a trip to the city with a single purpose in mind - to sleep with another man - Antarctica draws you into a world of obsession, betrayal and fragile relationships.

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