Small Things Like These

1985, just before Christmas in the small town of New Ross in County Wicklow. Times are tough in Ireland. Young people are leaving the country in droves due to a lack of prospects, and long lines form outside the unemployment office in the biting cold. Coal merchant Bill Furlong, an upright man, works hard to support his family of six. During one of his regular coal deliveries to the monastery that overlooks the town, Bill discovers a neglected young girl in the coal shed. He is deeply disturbed, and his thoughts begin to revolve around what he has seen and, above all, what he should have known but did not want to acknowledge – that in the so-called Magdalene laundries, operated by the Catholic Church since the 1820s, "fallen girls" were held in inhumane conditions and forced to work. They had to give up their newborn babies. Bill now faces a decision. Small Things Like These tells a story of complicity, guilt, and courage, and the importance of doing what is right.