My mind was abruptly taken back to a 30-year-old telephonic conversation last February, upon attending the world premiere of “Small Things Like These” in Berlin. The film was launched in Ireland on 1st November, featuring Cillian Murphy in an ambience-rich rendition of Claire Keegan’s popular brief novel.
The plot of the drama is based on Bill Furlong, a coal seller from New Ross in the 1980s. His subsistence and social regard depend on a dispute, the details of which I won’t divulge, with the head nun at a local convent.
My thoughts took me back to the time in 1996 when I had offered my volunteer services at a convent-run care home in northern Dublin. During this time, I spent weeks in a poorly-lit room, transferring paper records to a new electronic database. I received a call from the mother superior at home one evening. She appreciated my work and suggested that I start working at their other branch in the city. This new location was two bus rides and 90 minutes away and was supposed to start on the following Monday.
I found myself saying, “I appreciate your offer, sister, but I won’t be able to make it,” and then ended the call.
That was the last I heard from her. The small enjoyment of rebellion faded quickly. Confronting a nun in 1990’s Dublin did not have much of a societal impact. But for individuals like Bill Furlong, it was a far different situation.
The fear of influential clergymen was a concrete reality in Catholic Ireland, where the dread of retaliation was as efficacious as any direct intervention by the clergy. This caused a wave of compliance, which was as it was amplified by streams of apprehension, fear, and greed.
Aligning themselves with their core beliefs, several individuals maintained a strong belief that was moulded by colonialism and the era’s Catholic values – a belief that priests and the clergy were semi-divine entities who always had the correct answers.
Observing the subdued fury of Cillian Murphy, it’s all too tempting – and rather reassuring – to dismiss the challenging of church authority by characters like Bill Furlong as an anomaly within the confines of Catholic Ireland. Nevertheless, even this exceptional figure appears nonchalantly unmoved at times, as he witnesses a distressed adolescent girl being forcibly led by her mother to the ominously inviting entrance of a local institution known as the Magdalene Laundry.
Enda Walsh’s screenplay subtly yet ingeniously adds to the narrative throughout the movie, increasing both the stakes for Bill Furlong and the viewer’s involvement. On the other hand, director Tim Mielants gives Irish cinema lovers a repeat of the escape clause they encountered in the controversial and intense 2002 movie, The Magdalene Sisters. Within that narrative, actress Geraldine McEwan featured as an extraordinarily over the top Mother Superior, originating from London. Small Things Like These introduces another Londoner, Emily Watson, as the superior mother, delivering a captivatng performance, but in a starkly contrasting setting.
After being immersed in an hour of gloomy 1980s Catholic atmosphere, Bill Furlong steps into an office inside a convent, a blazing red fire contrasting his previous surroundings analogous to Dorothy Gale leaving the greyness of Kansas for the brilliance of Oz. Suddenly, Watson’s Mother Superior character appears as though the progeny of Harry Potter’s Voldemort and Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty. The viewers observe as this entrancing nun, with her slightly unsteady Irish accent, enchants the everyday, honourable Irish coal merchant. The lighting and direction suggest assurance to the viewing audience: the ordinary citizens of New Ross – and Ireland – were in fact misled by a wicked, external influence. Case resolved.
However, hold on a moment. Our priests and nuns were predominantly Irish nationals. Therefore, the deeds and actions of Catholic Ireland were about us, not the imagined others. So why deflect the reality?
Half a decade previously, I made a visit to Tuam with a singular enquiry: Who fathered the infants discovered buried beneath the former Bon Secours home?
A renowned local figure jokingly shared with me, “The offspring of these infants are the progenies of the most esteemed families in Tuam. And they will never divulge any information.” This statement was made about a decade following the disclosure by Catherine Corless, a local historian, of a discrepancy involving 798 infant death records with no corresponding burial documentation. Investigators are still in the early stages of uncovering the remains located beneath the former property.
However, the only potential way to identify relatives of the deceased is through an alleged reliance on mitochondrial DNA (mDNA). This type of DNA solely traces the maternal lineage, bringing relief for the sons of the highly-regarded families of Tuam, in spite of the fact that there are many locals who can readily identify them.
The fervent moral outrage generally reserved by the Irish for their priests and nuns implicated in scandals simmers down when it is essential to face the men who impregnated women, frequently in instances of power misuse and violence.
Despite our modern appearances and secular attitudes, remnants of old Catholic Ireland persist, with its judgemental outlook on women and the implied innocence of men. Some of this age-old Catholic ethos, a relentless aversion to causing scandal, may underpin the fight over records of survivors. The battle is marked by the state officials’ arbitrary redaction of data and the complete denial of access by religious orders.
Policies that breach European data protection principles, and which prolong the struggles of survivors, appear to be lesser crimes than the exposure of our collective guilt. It is true that, in the past, clergy and religious leaders wielded substantial power, while many individuals lacked the resources or power to resist. However, there were many who could have resisted, but chose not to. This failure to act, both on individual and community levels within Catholic Ireland, and the subsequent fallout affecting us even today, is a legacy yet to be fully addressed.
This denial prevents emotional growth as a nation. Although we offer superficial sympathy to the survivors, we cannot offer deep empathy without self-reflection on our historical actions. This failure to introspect is why the ghosts of our Catholic past continue to haunt us today.
The recent release of “Small Things Like These”, shown on All Souls Day, provides an opportunity to confront a question – Why didn’t I become Bill Furlong? Reflect on this in the silence of the theatre and the stillness of your heart.