Reading the end of The Children Act written by Ian McEwan and of The Dead written by James Joyce the intelligent reader can understand there are a lot of analogies between the two endings.

In The Dead the epiphany happens when Gabriel is about to leave the party. He finds her wife deep in thought and feeling sad hearing a song, "the Aughrim girl". Trying to comfort her in the hotel room Gretta reveal to him why she was sad. When she was young she was loved by a man, Michael Furey, who just to see her one last time before she left Galway he faced the cold winter night temperatures despite he was sick with pneumonia, disease for which he died, and in that last meeting Michael sang to Gretta "the Aughrim maiden".

The story ends with Gabriel that observes his wife sleeping while  around them falls the snow, that covers all Ireland, an ideally unites the living and the dead.

Gabriel, through the mechanism of the epiphany realize its meanness, of being interested only in his social condition and  having never truly loved his wife, like Michael Furey has done.

In The Children Act, after the concert Fiona talks to his husband about Adam, like Gretta talks to his husband about Michael Furey. The husbands ask to their wives the same question: “Were you in love with him?” because they understand it from their speeches.

Both Fiona and Gretta don’t answer directy to the question.

Fiona answers:” Oh Jack, he was just a child! A boy! A lovely boy!”, while Gretta answers:” "I used to go out walking with him, when I was in Galway".

No one directly answer to the question , they leave it in abeyance, because they do not want to say to themselves what they actually already know .

The women's reactions are equal , after having talk to their husbands both they fall asleep crying .

Also the last meeting with Adam and Michael Furey are equal . Michael has gone under Gretta’s window while it was raining at night. Adam has followed Fiona at Newcastle to talk to her , always in a rainy night (he seems toh ave follone you here. He’s been walking through the rain, completely drenched..”.