Amongst Women

Moran’s house is a symbol that represents family and steadfastness—for good and for bad. Moran spends his adult life maintaining his farm and viewing the home as the rightful place for his family. For him, providing his children with a house and a farm is indicative of his love for them, though its walls are often confining, a space over which Moran has complete domain. Moran grew up in a time in Ireland when land ownership was a point of pride that demonstrated independence after centuries of colonization. Therefore, Moran’s house is also a symbol of the independent Ireland for which Moran fought. None of his children are interested in inheriting the house or farm, which highlights the shifts in Irish culture and society in the mid-20th century. Jobs in cities and education are more important to the young people of Ireland than carrying on an attachment to the land. Moran’s house is the setting from which his children must escape to make better lives for themselves.

While Ireland changes, Moran’s house remains the same: “The changeless image of itself that the house so fiercely held to was now being threatened in small ways by the different reality the untutored and uncaring outside world saw” (174).