Sunday book pick: In ‘Factory Girls’, three young friends dream big during Northern Ireland Troubles

“Maeve was unnerved by how personally her parents took [the] murders. She didn’t feel the deaths in her teeth and bones the way her parents seemed to. She suspected it was because she’d grown up in the Troubles – neighbours shooting neighbours was just the way things had always been for her. It was the older generations who were more easily disturbed.”

Michelle Gallen’s Factory Girls is a spunky coming-of-age novel of three 17-year-old girls during the 30-year-long Troubles in Ireland. Gallen, who was born in the 1970s, at the start of the Troubles, seems to have vivid memories of growing up in these turbulent times. It is this political angst, lifelong trauma, and the inescapable chaos of growing up that enliven her novel. For fans of the rambunctious Derry Girls, this is an excellent companion read.

Clocking in

Maeve Murray feels that her life in Tyrone is limited and once she clears her school-passing examinations, she’ll escape to London from her “shitty wee town.” The dream is to become a journalist with a bespoke magazine, enjoying the best of culture, honing fine taste, and finally enjoying life without the constant threats of death and bombardment. However, Maeve comes from a family that has neither name nor money. On top of it, her sister Deirdre has died from suicide, making their mother extra vigilant towards Maeve. Her only wish for her living daughter is to make it to 18, to outlive her dead sister. Her Catholic identity, her Irish accent, and her piss poor background are going to be of no help to Maeve to secure her dream job – and the only way to compensate for these irreversible disadvantages is to make her own money and get out. So Maeve teams up with her best friends, Caroline and Aoife, to work at the shirt factory for the summer. At £70 a week plus bonus, it can add up to a significant amount. To get a head start on independence, Maeve convinces her friends to rent a flat with her. They agree.

But life at the factory isn’t just work. The English manager Andy is handsome and a ready subject for Maeve’s sexual fantasies – the inappropriateness of it aside, Andy is infamous for having relations with his female employees and Maeve plays up her indifference through curtness and (literally) always keeping him at arm’s length. The work is hard and monotonous (Maeve has to iron some 70 shirts an hour), and the girls wonder whether this short stint will do any good for their CVs.

Maeve’s childhood has been “almost completely” segregated; the Catholics and Protestants keep to themselves, any confluence guaranteeing trouble. However, at the factory, things are somewhat different. The Protestant English manager hires Catholics and Protestants on the grounds of “equal opportunities” but the two communities work “side by side”, not together. Maeve cannot be subtle about seeing a Protestant co-worker in the washroom. These encounters humanise one to the other, but it is 1994 and the flames of the Troubles are burning high and hot.

Into the big world

Between the friends, Maeve and Caroline belong to similar backgrounds while Aoife is middle-class. It is hard to conclude whether Aoife is as posh as Maeve believes her to be. Perhaps not – Aoife reminds Maeve that there will always be someone who’s better off than the most privileged person you know. The class difference manifests as academic competitiveness. Aoife’s mother will have nothing less than straight As while Maeve wants to score enough to be able to get out of town. Aoife has a conditional offer from Cambridge but she worries that it has more to do with her being a minority than with her being genuinely talented.

Maeve’s brash chatter and self-sure ways are interspersed with painful memories of losing her sister. Home hasn’t been the same since Deirdre died. The Troubles had a searing effect on Northern Irish family life – endangering the youth who often felt trapped with the endless unrest. Though Maeve claims not to be as easily “disturbed” by it as her parents, the truth is that almost every moment and decision in her life has been shaped by these unhappy circumstances. The land and its people have been hollowed out so thoroughly that there is no choice but to escape to the coloniser’s jaws – in this case, the “grimy streets” of London for Maeve – for an attempt at a “normal” life.

Like Derry Girls, Gallen’s novel also relies on the North’s rowdy humour to recount the decades of continuous unrest. The world couldn’t have enough of the Derry Girls, and the jokes in Factory Girls land each time, making the reader laugh out loud. The Irish accent takes some time getting used to, and it is the most charming aspect of the novel. When done well, humour can be an evocative medium of talking about pain and heartbreak – the novel’s effervescent surface makes it clearer for the reader to see the dark, heavy grief at the heart of it all.

And the girls sure do get the last laugh, marching onwards valiantly towards the future that they have painstakingly saved up every penny for.

Factory Girls, Michelle Gallen, Algonquin Books.