Poor: Grit, courage, and the life-changing value of self-belief

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Katriona's book is a must-read for anyone interested in education or social work, for anyone who works with children, for everyone. Ignore the housework, any and all responsibilities and read 'Poor'. Katriona speaks about the people in education and social care setting who helped her, and those who failed her. I cried when reading about her early childhood and the abuse she suffered. I cried when I read about her older brother coming home from work to find her and her siblings, hungry, with not a parent to be seen. Some chapters are truly harrowing. I found myself with a pain in my chest and thinking of that little seven year old and her brothers and sister long after I'd finished reading. This is a harrowing tale of Katriona’s life as she was brought up by drug-addict parents surrounded by poverty. Her world around her was soiled, filthy and squalid.

Books UK Poor - Penguin Books UK

One of the most important books I have ever read ... a beautiful telling of determination despite the odds' - Lynn Ruane, Irish Times Being able to hear Katriona tell her story in her audiobook, in her own voice brought me to tears several times. Fast forward seven years and I had achieved my all-time goal; I was a lone parent, I lived in a government-assisted flat in Dublin 1, and I was getting my social welfare. My child was doing his best and so was I. I had a cash-in-hand job cleaning Connolly station. I woke at 6am every morning leaving my son John in bed while I walked to the station and cleaned the dirtiest office you have ever seen in your life. I had it all. But still, I couldn’t shake the feeling of “is this really it?” Having somebody like me in there was just pivotal”, she explains. “If you don’t see people like you, you’re never going to aspire to it”. In her newly published memoir ‘Poor’ she explains how along the way some teachers tried to help the bright student. However by 15 O’Sullivan was pregnant and homeless. The young mother struggled with substance abuse, repeating the debilitating patterns of her own childhood. She moved to Dublin aged 20 after her parents left England.This is the extraordinary story - moving, funny, brave, and sometimes startling - of how Katriona turned her life around. How the seeds of self-belief planted by teachers in childhood stayed with her. How she found mentors whose encouragement revitalised those seeds in adulthood, leading her to become an award-winning academic whose work challenges barriers to education. The @kildarereadersfestival hosted a talk with Katriona last night @riverbankartscentreie and she spoke about her book, her life now and her family. One take-home point from that for me was that children in poverty need more than just 'hard work' to make their way out into a better life. What use is hard work at school if you're not eating dinner at home? What use is 'hard work' if your parents' main priority at that time is drugs or alcohol? What use is 'hard work' if no one cares enough to keep you clean and wash your clothes?

Poor: Grit, courage, and the life-changing value of self

This is the extraordinary story - moving, funny, brave, and sometimes startling - of how Katriona turned her life around. How the seeds of self-belief planted by teachers in childhood stayed with her. How she found mentors whose encouragement revived those seeds in adulthood. Amazing read by an amazing woman. Some parts were absolutely gut-wrenching; really brought a tear to my eye. The fortitude she had to get through what she did amazed me, and to get to where she is today even more so. However, as Katriona herself points out, she didn't make it out alone, there were numerous people along the way who helped her up, as well as programmes and social investment schemes that paved the way. Now all those schemes are gone at a time when we need them more than ever. There must be so many like her out there, struggling with abuse, addiction, terrible parents, with no-one to see them as they really are. Growing up in a working class community in Coventry to Irish parents, Katriona O'Sullivan dealt with far more trauma and poverty than any child should ever know. In her book Poor, Katriona speaks about her hardship growing up as a child of parents who were drug addicts, and how ofttimes it was school and kind teachers that first taught her that she deserved more than what she had, and instilled a love of learning and education within her. Despite my family drama, and the regular hunger pains, I was bright and vivacious. I loved school, I loved to learn, I read avidly. I was excellent at all sports and was, and still am, extremely determined. But when you live in a family that does not aspire to much, and you are surrounded by people who cannot see past your disadvantage, it’s really hard to dream big. I knew no one who went to university or college and dreamed of being somewhere else or someone else. I didn’t dream of a university education or travelling the world – my dreams only stretched as far as being on TV or becoming a pop star.Dr Katriona O’Sullivan: ‘Biology, physics, chemistry, philosophy, psychology – I loved everything.’ When she told me she was in Trinity I thought, if she’s going there, I’m going there”, the author says. That day O’Sullivan marched up to the Trinity Access Programme and asked to be accepted into the college. This was the beginning of her new life in academia.

Katriona O’Sullivan: What will you do to change Poor by Katriona O’Sullivan: What will you do to change

At it’s core this is a cautionary tale about the effects of austerity, the class system in the UK and the horrifying generational impact of addiction. We formed groups, the young matures and the old matures, the Gothy kids and the Tallaght heads. I didn’t really get into a group, I had no time to socialise and had to care for my son on my own. I also felt awkward and still felt ashamed. I don’t know why but I’ve always felt like this so making friends, trusting people, didn’t happen easily. O’Sullivan went on to achieve a first class honours degree in psychology and now works in Maynooth University breaking down barriers to education for marginalised girls. It’s Not Where You Live; It’s How You Live: Class and Gender Struggles in a Dublin Estate by John Bissett. Bissett’s book is a mix of theory and storytelling, taking us deep into the lives within a public housing estate in Dublin.

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Why do you want to do this course?” the interviewer asks me. He seems nice but I’m sure he can see through me. “I want to change my life,” I reply. “I feel like I’m missing something.” He smiles and I’m sure I’ve said something wrong. “Do you read books,” he asks. “Yes,” I say. “I have always loved to read”. He smiles again and makes a note. Being a child in poverty is the greatest indicator you will suffer from asthma, cancer, heart disease or mental illness, that you will go to prison, be addicted to drugs , get divorced, die young or commit suicide. Despite this understanding we allow children to go to school hungry and live in danger where drugs and alcohol are used. Despite what we know we still pretend that all it takes to succeed is hard work when the truth is only the privileged can. I read poor in one sitting ... I found it so complelling. An amazing story ... moving, uplifting, brave, heroic ' - Nuala McGovern, Woman's Hour, BBC

From homeless and expecting at 15 to a lecturer at Trinity

Without the opportunity to breathe in knowledge, to step slowly into this beautiful place, I would have never been able to succeed. It was the secure base from which I was able to navigate my educational path. Coming from poverty dreams aren't sky high, most of the time they barely go past the ceiling of a council house. And being 'better' meant having a job or not selling drugs This book is a real hard-hitter as learning about the poverty Katriona and her siblings grew up is honestly just hard to stomach as she lists the drugs and dirt she lived in, the times the house was raided by police (and how these police treated the children in a brutal way) and just every way her parents failed their kids in every way imaginable including her mother turning a blind eye to the sexual abuse of her daughter. What makes this story so awe-inspiring is how she went from this to becoming Dr Katriona O’Sullivan, the award-winning lecturer after graduating from Trinity College. How much courage, strength, fortitude and pure determination must it have taken to get where she is today?Katriona survives because she met a few good people along life’s path that turn out to be pivotal. These people saw her love for learning and inspired her but it was down to Katriona 100% to walk a different path to the one being modelled by her parents and maintained by the system. There were glimpses of other lives. At three, she remembers her friend next door being given a hug by her mum, and wondering why her own mother didn’t hug her like that. For a short time, she and her siblings were taken into care, where she “got food, and washed”. She always believed she deserved more, but over the years, she says, “hope and belief get eroded”. The effort of survival was exhausting. “As a kid, I was hopeful, vivacious. All kids are – some are quiet, some are loud, but we all have potential. And then as a teenager, with all the shit constantly, in the end, you just lean into it.” There were people, she says, “trying to keep me hopeful, but it’s very hard to battle against a lifetime of poverty and belief within a family. Eventually, it’s like your light goes out.” It takes a special person to see beyond the wrongs that one has endured and then use one’s wounds as the basis to create something big. As you follow the story beyond O’Sullivan’s early years, she keeps doing big things: overcoming big hurdles and traumas, achieving huge dreams, and creating changes and challenges to the status quo. I think O’Sullivan would have made it anyway, but you can’t ignore the moments along the way that helped. Most of the time being poor felt like a sodden blanket which was lying heavy across my shoulders dragging me down into dark waters"