Small Things Like These Ending Explained: Bill Furlong’s Moral Choice

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Literal Account of the Ending

In the closing pages of the novella, it is Christmas Eve. Bill Furlong, having delivered his last loads of coal, walks through the snowy town of New Ross. He buys a jigsaw puzzle and sweets, collects new shoes for his wife Eileen, and gets a haircut. Despite the festive atmosphere, he feels a growing compulsion to act.

He crosses the bridge toward the convent where he earlier discovered a young woman, Sarah Redmond, locked in a coal shed. After drinking a 7UP and pausing by the river, he circles the convent walls, noting the broken glass and blacked-out windows. He slides back the bolt on the coal-house door, calls Sarah’s name, and she emerges wearing only a thin cardigan and blouse. She takes his coat and leans on him as he leads her out.

Together they walk through the town. Townspeople stare, make snide remarks, or avoid them. A little boy laughs and calls Sarah dirty; an elderly woman confronts Furlong about “one of those wans from the laundry.” Sarah vomits in the street. In the Square, she stops at the lighted nativity scene, stroking the donkey’s ear. Furlong feels a mixture of unprecedented joy and deep fear. He knows he will face trouble but believes he is doing right. The narrative ends as he climbs the hill toward his front door, holding Sarah’s hand and a box of shoes, hoping they will manage.

The Climax: Retrieval of Sarah

The climactic moment is not a violent confrontation but a quiet, radical act of compassion. Furlong’s internal struggle—between self-preservation and courage—resolves when he opens the coal-house door. Earlier in the novel, he had taken money from the Mother Superior and left Sarah at the table, a decision that tormented him. Now he returns, rejecting the institutional authority that treated Sarah as invisible.

The climax is also marked by Furlong’s explicit rejection of the complicity that surrounds him. Mrs Kehoe had warned him that the nuns “have a finger in every pie” and that “they’re all the one.” Furlong replies, “Surely they’ve only as much power as we give them?” His action is an attempt to reclaim that power.

Major Character Outcomes

Bill Furlong: Ends the novel in a state of uncertain hope. He has done what he believes is moral, but he is fully aware that “the worst was yet to come.” His joy is mixed with fear, and his family’s social and economic standing is now at risk because he has openly defied the convent.
Sarah Redmond: Escapes the convent, but her fate is unresolved. She is barefoot, traumatised, and has been subjected to forced labour and the removal of her baby. Furlong gives her no guarantees; he simply brings her to his home.
Eileen Furlong: Not present in the final scene, but she is waiting at home. Earlier she was cautious about helping the poor, yet she also showed generosity. The reader is left to wonder how she will react to her husband bringing a stranger into their home.
The Mother Superior and the Nuns: The convent system remains intact. Furlong’s act is a personal defiance, not a systemic overthrow. The nuns continue to wield power in the town.
Ned: Furlong’s possible father figure, now ill and in a nursing home, never learns of Furlong’s action. The question of paternity remains ambiguous.

Resolved and Unresolved Threads

Resolved:

Furlong’s moral paralysis: He acts decisively to save Sarah.
His guilt over his earlier passivity: He overcomes his hypocrisy and refuses to go to Mass without acting.
The immediate danger: Sarah is no longer locked in a coal shed.

Unresolved:

Sarah’s long-term safety: Will the nuns try to reclaim her? Will the community ostracise her and the Furlongs?
The fate of Sarah’s baby: The novel never reveals what happened to the infant.
Eileen’s response: The story ends before she sees Sarah.
The broader Magdalen laundries: The convent continues to operate.

Theme Resolution: Moral Courage vs. Complicity

The central theme—the gap between professed ideals and actual behaviour—is most fully resolved in Furlong’s final act. He confronts his own complicity after the Dublin girl who wanted to drown herself and after Mrs Kehoe’s warnings. His reflection, “Was there any point in being alive without helping one another?” directly answers the epigraph’s call to “cherish all the children equally.”

Yet the resolution is deliberately incomplete. Furlong’s courage is an individual, not a collective, awakening. The town’s silence and the nuns’ power remain unchallenged in any structural way. The novel ends with legitimate belief that they will manage, not with certainty.

The Author’s Note and Historical Context

After the story, Claire Keegan includes a note stating the novel is purely fictional. She then provides stark historical facts: Ireland’s last Magdalen laundry closed in 1996; 10,000 to 30,000 women were incarcerated; records were destroyed. She cites the Mother and Baby Home Commission Report’s finding of 9,000 child deaths in 18 institutions, and Catherine Corless’s discovery of 796 infant remains in Tuam. These institutions were run jointly by the Catholic Church and the State; no apology came until Taoiseach Enda Kenny in 2013.

This note reframes the ending. Sarah’s story is not an isolated incident but part of a national atrocity. Furlong’s small act of rescue becomes a microcosm of what society failed to do for thousands.

Reasonable Interpretations of the Ending

Hopeful open ending: Furlong’s “legitimate belief” suggests the family will survive. The domestic space becomes an alternative to institutional cruelty.
Tragic foreboding: The convent’s reach was vast; Furlong’s daughters attend St. Margaret’s school next door. The family may face ruin. The very ambiguity mirrors the historical erasure of these women’s fates.
Symbolic rescue: The act might be read as Furlong saving a version of his own mother, who could have ended up in a laundry had Mrs Wilson not helped her.
Moral exemplum: The ending is deliberately incomplete to challenge readers: what would we do? The story refuses to provide catharsis because the real history offers none.

Reader Questions and Answers

1. Does the novel explicitly state what happens to Sarah after the ending? No. The narrative stops as Furlong and Sarah reach his front door. The reader is left to infer based on the historical context and the risks Furlong has taken.

2. Why does Sarah vomit? She has been subjected to starvation, fear, and possibly forced feeding or poisoning. In the coal shed she had nothing; later she ate cake and tea. Her body is rejecting mistreatment.

3. Does Furlong ever learn the identity of his father? No. Ned implies there were many visitors and that Furlong’s mother “fell into” someone’s arms. The question is deliberately left open.

4. What is the significance of the nativity scene? Sarah is drawn to the donkey. The manger scene represents a story of vulnerable refugees. Furlong and Sarah stand outside looking in, mirroring the town’s exclusion of the marginalized.

5. Will the nuns take revenge on Furlong? The novel does not show this, but Mrs Kehoe’s warnings and the convent’s influence make it likely. The text emphasises that he will “pay” for his action.

6. What is the purpose of the historical note? It transforms the intimate story into a political and historical indictment. It reminds readers that the suffering depicted was real and recent, and that official apologies came only after decades of silence.