Clodagh Finn: Why is ‘survivor’ still the hardest word in our unfinished democracy?

We are not short of evidence of how State, Church, and society were complicit in a culture of silence and fear, writes Clodagh Finn

Kathy O'Beirne in a Magdalene Laundry in 1910

I READ Claire Keegan’s magnificent book Small Things Like These in a single sitting.

It was named Irish Novel of the Year at Listowel Writers’ Week last week and you are unlikely to find a more evocative or tender study of life in the cold, closed Ireland of 1985. Yet you’ll also find hope and deep humanity in the raw chill of one late November in New Ross, Co Wexford.