The Irish are fantastic storytellers

at the moment i’m going through a phase of reading books by irish authors. i picked up some of Claire Keegan’s work last month and today i got around to Small Things Like These. since Cillian Murphy is in the film adaptation, i ended up watching that too.

even though the main character goes through different aspects of his life, the whole story is shaped by what happened in the the Church. i come from a country that was colonised and the village i’m from is extremely regressive. since moving to Ireland, i feel like i’ve found a lot more freedom.

i’m slowly learning more about Ireland’s past beyond the famine and colonialism and tbh, the more i read, the more it gives me chills. the more i learn, the more i can relate to it in some ways.

i’m really glad i started reading irish authors. there have been so many fantastic stories so far and i seem to especially enjoy the depressing ones lol. i’m much more of a liberal person and my political views were shaped mostly by books even before i moved here. but moving to Ireland made me more open, kinder and more appreciative of the little things people usually ignore. the books here have genuinely been lifechanging for me.