We are the ones left behind in swaddling bound with bailing twine, They stole the marrow from our very Bones and we in turn, turned on our own.The poet Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote that music could lift him up. The granite gaze upon us now, a skulking mass recalling how To plant a secret and tell no lies For now we own those same stone eyes.Īnd it's the last gasp of wonder for a cretin on a throne As our daughter's sneak away across the foam, The future's just a thing we say to keep the sordid past at bay Still we cling on to the mother who eats her own. The future's further day-by-day as our fathers turn away And leave us clinging to a mother who eats her own. Stood in line in horsehair shirts we queued up to eat the dirt, We traded lumps on narrow streets, Can't bite the hand when you've no teeth.Īnd it's a standing ovation for the shadow of a stone As we dig into the soil beneath our homes. They draw the marrow from our very Bones and we in turn, turn on our own.

Of course things were changing as the church began to lose its grip and there is much love and hope in the actions of someone like Bill Furlong.Īre we the ones left behind by those who weave cords that bind?

An inner rage at how these people commanded so much authority and the misery they inflicted on people. Anger at how the state turned a blind eye or worked in tandem with them, exerting control over the people. I realise these were different times and the past is a foreign country, and it’s difficult now to realise how suffocating and in thrall to superstition Ireland was, but it feels like such an act of collective neglect. ‘Small things like these’ made me angry, again, at how the Catholic Church treated young women. Ireland is perfectly observed - there’s a scene in the chapel which is as close to my own experience of those times as I’ve ever read. The writing is just so elegant and to the point. I’m trying not to use the word ‘perfect’ too often in this book review, but it’s hard not to.

‘Small things like these’ is a novella, as it comes in 128 perfect pages. He finds moral courage at a time when the local community lived in fear of the Catholic Church. One of these is to the local convent, where he makes a discovery that forces him into making a decision that may have repercussions for both him and his family. The weather is bitterly cold and it’s coming up to Christmas, and Bill is plodding along with the drudgery of his day to day existence, making his deliveries. It’s 1985 and Bill Furlong is a coal merchant in a town in the South East of Ireland, married with five daughters. Just when it’s coming to the end of the year, and I’m beginning to think of my favourite novels from the past twelve months, this absolute beauty of a book from Claire Keegan streaks in straight at number one.

Small things like these book