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I am much more of a savory person. Yet, oh my goodness do I love scones!
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Akron Irish: Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves
- iIrish Admin
- December 26, 2024
- Edited 19 hours ago
Table of Contents
By Lisa O’Rourke
It’s a little hard to make out what is going on at first. Then a girl materializes from the twisting bodies. She is all 80s – jeans and big hair. There are two other women in the tussle. One of them looks to be her mother and the other a nun. She is being pushed through convent gates, her body an elbow of resistance. The image is haunting.
Auld Times
The scene is from the second literary work by Claire Keegan to be adapted to film. The first was “The Quiet Girl.” The current film is adapted from a novella of the same name, “Small Things Like These.” They are different stories, but they share common themes.
Claire Keegan is a gifted writer. Keegan’s Ireland is the country of the not-so-distant past. It is a country on the cusp, but still in the throes of the old systems.
Keegan is devoid of any sentimentality for the “auld days.” She saves her empathy for the fates of her characters, who are caught in a society that is ruled by church and righteous neighbors. Her characters’ struggle to act in a humane and kind way against a society thinks that the right way belongs to dispassionate and inflexible systems.
Small Things Like These
“Small Things Like These” is set in the late 80s. The Magdalene laundries are part of the story, but not the main part. Yet, it is shocking to see a girl who would have been my contemporary pulled into a convent against her will.
The laundries were a cruel system that functioned for an amazingly long time. They existed in broad daylight albeit on lonely streets.
Keegan’s stories often feature a female who is trapped. They lack the power to control their destinies. The conflicted characters in both stories are the men who see the wrongs but are constrained by circumstance to right them.
The Times Do Be Changing
The Magdalene laundries seem like an institution that operated exclusively in the poverty-stricken dark ages. Seeing that girl in jeans just smacks of how recently this was still happening. The first president of Ireland, Mary Robinson, was in the final days of her presidency in 1996 when the last of the laundries closed in Dublin.
Irish culture was patriarchal and heavily influenced by a church often corrupted by their power. Naturally, all the blame and the shame went on the head of the woman. There were no homes for “wayward” men.
Saoirse Ronan
Saoirse Ronan sat on a couch, the lone female on an episode of the Graham Norton talk show. The discussion revolved around one of the actors learning some unconventional ways to protect himself to prepare for a role. The men scoffed at the idea, for example, of shoving a cell phone in the jugular of a would-be attacker.
Saoirse simmered. She interrupted the man-splaining to comment that women think about things like that all the time. They must think about how to protect themselves with whatever is at hand.
The comment cut through the jokey atmosphere like a knife. The thrust of the comment landed on fellow Irishman Paul Mescal. To his credit, Paul praised Saoirse and owned his oversight.
Saoirse has since done several interviews on a point that is obvious to women. She talked about the lack of freedom that women still feel. They must be ready to protect themselves in situations as simple as going to their car.
Bad Bad Sisters
Moral stoicism is not a feature of the behavior of Apple TV’s “Bad Sisters.” The show is set in the Dublin suburbs of here and now. It is written by one of the stars, Sharon Horgan, and it shows.
The female voice is clear. These ladies aren’t waiting for help.
The sisters are a tight knit group. They want to get on with things, but they are plagued by some truly awful adversaries.
The societal traps are still in effect, but have weakened. These ladies know the game and how to play it.
The series shows them deftly playing people by putting on transparent displays of good behavior. They do things like gracing a dining table with a large statue of the Child of Prague. These displays are put on and shrugged off so easily that we are all in on the joke.
It is the other characters in the show who own the shameful secrets. So far, these secrets belong to a few dreadful men and a “devout” Catholic poser. The brother-in-law in the first series is so patriarchal, condescending and toady that you want to slap him through the TV.
The sisters, while imperfect, exult a humane innocence that defies the tricky circumstances that they find themselves in. They are doing their best to thrive and take care of each other for F’s sake! So what if they are having the craic while they do it.
Do Not Go Quietly
It is hard not to admire the stoic determination of Claire Keegan’s characters. It is an admirable way to be. But for my money, I am going with the subversive Bad Sisters and the out-spoken Saoirse.
Irish women are often called demur and ladylike. Don’t believe it. They are playing the game too.
These images are here because they struck me with their contradictions. They make you realize how much has changed and how much is clinging to the past. But looked at together, they are on the side of change.
Ireland did not stroll into the 21st century. It was thrown. The lives and status of women changed fast too.
There are Irish women of my mother’s generation, early Boomers, who were eras away from many of their western peers. They weren’t smoking and burning bras in the 60s. Some Irish women didn’t drive or venture too far on their own.
Cat Ladies
Before we get too far out over our smug skis, we have yet to elect a woman president in this country. We just had a fellow Ohioan call out women who made lifestyle decisions as “childless cat ladies,”
The equivalent name for men who make these types of decision is ambitious. To quote Taylor Swift, self-proclaimed Cat Lady, “Is it cool that I said all that?”
Read more of Lisa’s Akron Irish columns HERE!
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Lisa O'Rourke
*Lisa O’Rourke is an educator from Akron. She has a BA in English and a Master’s in Reading/Elementary Education. Lisa is a student of everything Irish, primarily Gaeilge, and runs a Gaeilge study group at the AOH/Mark Heffernan Division. Lisa is married to Dónal, has two sons, Danny and Liam, and enjoys art, reading, music, and travel, spending time with her dog, cats and fish. Lisa can be contacted at [email protected].Please send Akron events to my email!
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