Sarah Harte: The small things that went ignored were our biggest issues in the past

As 'Leathered' and 'Small Things like These' demonstrate, so much of what was visited on Ireland's children in the past has repercussions in the present, writes Sarah Harte

Anyone foreign watching the recent movie ‘Small Things Like These’ would quickly conclude that violence and Catholicism had been the defining elements of our national identity.

We’re waking up on a seismic day, wrecked from pulling all-nighters. As America is on high alert, I thought we’d look to the violence on our shores still reverberating down the generations.

Let’s say a foreigner looking to understand the Irish psyche watched the RTÉ 1 documentary Leathered about corporal punishment in Irish schools. Then, took in the new Cillian Murphy film Small Things Like These, centred on the local Magdalene Laundry home in a small town.