Oscar-winning actor Cillian Murphy has said his new film Small Things Like These shows an Ireland that was “a different country”.
The film is based on Claire Keegan’s 2021 Booker-shortlisted story and tells the story of a Wexford man, coal merchant Bill Furlong, who uncovers a terrible scene at the local Magdalene Laundry
Women and girls who became pregnant outside marriage were sent to the laundries by their families, welfare authorities, the courts, police, clergymen and church organisations.
Murphy, who won the Best Actor Oscar for the lead role in Oppenheimer, plays the role of furlong in the drama set in 1985.
His character, who is a father of five daughters, comes across a girl who is locked away at a convent and the story continues from there.
“It is a very seemingly simple story but it is an incredibly complex tale,” he told the Vinny & Cate show on BBC Radio Ulster.
“If you think about Ireland then, the Kerry babies were in ’84, the moving statues was in ’85, there was no abortion and no divorce and maybe not even contraception so it was a completely different landscape,” he said.
“We are deliberately kind of pushing that so it feels like it could be in the ’50s or the ’60s and it’s only when you drop in Come on Eileen or something and you realise we’re actually in 1985.
Murphy said he was surprised that the film was being called “historical” but added: “It shows you how this country has changed since then and these laundries were in operation until 1996, which is kind of hard to fathom.”
At least 10,500 women spent time in a mother-and-baby home from 1922 until that point.
The last institution in Northern Ireland closed only in 1990.
Murphy’s co-star Eileen Walsh said she hoped the film would start conversations.
“There is so much subtext within it, I think three people can watch the film and have three different opinions as to how it ends, or who has their empathy at whatever point,” she said.
“The film finishes just when the drama is about to begin, so everybody I think will come out with a different version of what the beginning of the next drama is.”
You can listen to the full interview with Cillian Murphy, Eileen Walsh and Emily Watson on BBC Sounds.