The Magdalene Laundries were a sinister interlocking system of orphanages, homes for "fallen women" and unwed mothers, and workhouses, where women and girls provided cheap labor for the surrounding community. They were, essentially, prisons. The babies born to these mothers were put up for adoption, often against the mother's will.

In 1985 devoted father Bill Furlong discovers disturbing secrets kept by the local convent and uncovers shocking truths of his own.

Synopsis Small Things Like These takes place over Christmas in 1985, when devoted father and coal merchant Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy) discovers startling secrets kept by the convent in his town, along with some shocking truths of his own.

Murphy produces and stars in an adaptation of Claire Keegan’s Booker Prize-shortlisted novel involving one of Ireland’s Magdalene laundries, workhouses run by the Catholic Church, where unmarried, pregnant women were interned and forced to give birth in secret.

Bill Furlong is a coal merchant in 1985 New Ross, Ireland. When he was born, his mother was an unmarried teenager, ostracised by her family but permitted to continue working respectably as a maid by her kind-hearted employer. Now a financially independent adult, Bill prepares for the approaching Christmas with his wife and five daughters.

While working as a coal merchant to support his family, he discovers disturbing secrets kept by the local convent — and uncovers truths of his own — forcing him to confront his past and the complicit silence of a small Irish town controlled by the Catholic Church.

Zoom out. 28 years later, on the other side of an Oscar (among other successes) for Murphy and a sparkling career as a playwright for Walsh, they’re working together again on Small Things Like These, an astoundingly powerful new film adapted from Claire Keegan’s critically-acclaimed novella of the same name, about a coal delivery man called Bill Furlong in 1980s small-town Ireland who becomes an accidental witness to the cruelty of a nearby Magdalene Laundry.

Claire Keegan's book was adapted for the big screen by Enda Walsh. Here is the official synopsis: "Oscar winner Cillian Murphy delivers a stunning performance as devoted father Bill Furlong in this film based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Claire Keegan.

What is Small Things Like These (2024) about? In 1985 devoted father Bill Furlong discovers disturbing secrets kept by the local convent and uncovers shocking truths of his own.