Prolific Irish playwright Enda Walsh is the scribe behind Tim Mielants’ latest drama Small Things Like These, starring Cillian Murphy in his first post-Oppenheimer, post-Academy Award role. Adapting Irish writer Claire Keegan’s novella, Walsh aids Mielants in bringing to the screen the story of Murphy’s coal merchant Bill Furlong, who’s grappling with the tyranny and injustice of the local convent, where young unwed mothers (or ‘fallen women’) are held and abused.
The Magdalene Laundries operated in Ireland under Roman Catholic orders from the 1820s until as recently as 1996. At times disguised in the community as places of refuge for women, in reality they operated as workhouses. Walsh’s screenplay is set in County Wexford in 1985. Bill Furlong is on one of his regular coal-delivery rounds shortly before Christmas when he sees a teenage girl being forcibly delivered to the convent by her parents. This encounter triggers uncomfortable memories of his own childhood. Furlong’s conscience takes over and that’s where Walsh’s incisive script shines.
