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

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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. It is impossible to overstate the significance of this in Katriona's life I think - she says so herself. It was a pivotal moment in helping her understand that she was worthy of loving care and attention; that she was somebody. All children deserve love and respect and without that and the necessary societal supports and pathways to education, the cycle of poverty will continue unbroken.

Poor - Penguin Books UK

For the people who can’t recover from that, it is no surprise that patterns repeat themselves. Even for O’Sullivan, who by any measure is a huge success – happily married with three children, an impressive research career, an expert on access to education, and one of the most remarkable people you will ever meet – that voice is still there, but quieter now. “There will always be a small part of me that just wants to be loved by my parents,” she says, and she apologises for the tears that spring to her eyes. “I think we carry our childhood with us. That’s the long-lasting residue from mine.” 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. The results will be posted online in June, if you guys are thinking about using this degree for anything decent in the future a 2.1 or above is your only hope.” I put my head down and work harder than I have worked before. If I fail at this I am f**ked, all of this will have been for nothing. 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. Poor is not only Katriona's story, but is also her impassioned argument for the importance of looking out for our kids' futures. Of giving them hope, practical support and meaningful opportunities.

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When the letter arrived offering a place on the access programme my dad got it framed. I felt happy, sad, scared and hopeful. But who would help me, who would look after my son? My friends were supportive and one of them told me about the Vinnies (St Vincent DePaul) – a group who could help people like me. I called the number, trying to explain without sounding desperate. They came over and were kind. A little posh, but they seemed genuine.

From homeless and expecting at 15 to a lecturer at Trinity

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 was 2011 when I first met the now-published author Katriona O’Sullivan. She stood at the top of the lecture hall in Trinity College Dublin in a beige cardigan down to her knees, blue denim jeans and a pair of runners. She spoke about addiction, and I couldn’t quite tell if she had an accent like mine because of her English twang. 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. Twelve years later, I get to sit here and write a book review for one of the most important books I have ever read. I don’t say that because O’Sullivan is my friend – though she is – but because she has written a memoir that brings the reader to the edges of their tolerance and empathy and profoundly challenges the judgment that readers may harbour towards families like O’Sullivan’s. The book helped. She likes herself now. “I think I’ve always liked myself, though. What’s really sad about growing up is that I can clearly remember being a young girl, alive to the world, inquisitive and bright, like all kids are but, unfortunately, I was born in this community where I wasn’t given an opportunity to flourish.” She feels now, nearly four decades on, closer to that girl, before the weight of neglect, predatory men, fear and low expectations crushed her. “Like, I’m alive again.” We aren’t just one thing, good or bad. This book has no absolutes. Instead, there is an array of moments when decisions were made out of necessity or survival, and beneath that, survival was a deep love and connection between O’Sullivan and her parents. O’Sullivan pushes us past the addiction and the difficult moments and forces us to confront the humanity of the people at the core of this story. The book delivers a powerful message to society about how we treat those who struggle with chronic addiction. She wants the reader to see them, and we do.

‘I sat drinking in the knowledge, and for the first time in

We love a rags-to-riches story, and we love to see someone triumph through sheer determination. But the story is rarely that simple. My story isn't, anyway.'A really thought-provoking and worthwhile read. Thank you so much @penguinbooksireland for the #gifted copy. Highly recommended. 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. 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. 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.

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

Being able to hear Katriona tell her story in her audiobook, in her own voice brought me to tears several times. This book is a compelling read that proves both difficult to put down and challenging to read. Katriona O'Sullivan pours her heart out to the reader, using her memoir as a cathartic medium to elucidate and comprehend her upbringing and early life, enabling her to move forward and embrace her own life to the best of her abilities. From an educational and policy perspective, it is essential to grasp the hardships some individuals face and the seemingly insurmountable obstacles they encounter.O’Sullivan was cleaning toilets in the train station when a chance encounter with an old friend on O’Connell Street changed the course of her life. The friend, also a young single mother, told O’Sullivan how she was studying law in Trinity College. Moving, funny, brave and original - just like the author ... absolutely incredible' - Roísín Ingle, Irish Times Women's Podcast The next couple of years were difficult, dealing not only with the trauma of her own childhood, but also with a baby. We normalise the struggle of life with a newborn for older, middle-class mothers, she points out, “but young mothers are punished for the same thing”. To her horror, O’Sullivan found the pattern of her childhood repeating itself: it was easy to forget the trauma of her life if she was out at pubs and clubs, drinking and taking drugs; desperate for love, she confused it with sex. What I found most refreshing was that Katriona didn’t claw her way out of her council estate with the aim of becoming a middle class suburban housewife.