Claire Keegan’s ‘Small Things Like These’ (PP) 

DATE:       Monday, 20th October 2025
TIME:        7pm - 8pm
VENUE:    Online Via Zoom

Target Audience: Senior Cycle English teachers

● Outline reasons why Small Things Like These is an excellent choice for the comparative study in the Leaving Certificate.
● Pick out important and useful moments in each of the 7 sections of the novel.
● Examine recurring motifs.
● Summarise key points for each of the four comparative modes at Higher Level: Theme-Issue, General Vision and Viewpoint, Literary Genre,
Cultural Context, as well as briefly covering the Ordinary Level modes.
● Look at possible comparisons to a small number of other texts.
● Identify useful resources and links, especially literary, historical and social sources.

Presenter:



Julian Girdham is an experienced English teacher and conference presenter. He has organised researchED Dublin, a major international educational conference on evidence-based practice, which has twice taken place in his school, St Columbas College in Dublin, as well as an annual summer English Meet for teachers of English. His resources are at www.juliangirdham.com, including a fortnightly newsletter on books and teaching. He also writes for a variety of publications, including the Irish Times and Leader magazine.