Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan is an historical fiction novella set in 1985 in New Ross, Ireland, and first published in 2020. The novella follows a coal and timber merchant named Bill Furlong in the weeks leading up to Christmas 1985. Furlong, an extremely hard worker accustomed to long hours and demanding labor, begins to question what else matters in life apart from his family. When he discovers a young girl locked in the coal shed at the local convent, Furlong faces a moral dilemma. Either he defies the deeply entrenched religious order in his community (and risks his own daughters' education), or he stays silent at the expense of his moral self-regard. Thematically, the novella centers on questions of family, identity, hypocrisy, and reflection.
Keegan's novella is based on the historical phenomenon of Irish Magdalene laundries and mother-and-baby homes, where unmarried young mothers, mentally ill women, and girls deemed "promiscuous" were sent to work in penitentiary prisons. Often, these women and girls faced punishment, abuse, and social exclusion, and their children also suffered prejudice and discrimination. The Irish state and religious institutions have both admitted that they conspired in the existence of these homes.
In 2022, Keegan's novella won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. According to the Orwell Foundation's website, this prize "rewards outstanding novels and collections of short stories, first published in the UK or Ireland, that illuminate major social and political themes, present or past, through the art of narrative." Small Things like These also won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award, an annual award for Irish fiction authors. In addition, it was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Booker Prize.
