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

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Being poor effects everything you do and everything you are. Thinking of poverty, we picture barefoot children in rags on the street but for me poor was also a feeling like I had no worth. It was poverty of mind, poverty of stimulation, poverty of safety and poverty of relationships. Being poor controls how you see yourself, how you trust and speak, how you see the world and how you dream" or 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. 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.

Katriona O’Sullivan: ‘I remember cleaning the toilets going Katriona O’Sullivan: ‘I remember cleaning the toilets going

But there were also the people – children, and adults, too – who were repelled by poverty. “Poverty has layers. We were probably the most extreme – no food, not washed, nits. Kids don’t want to play with you, so it’s horrible because not only are you suffering at home, I was also going to school and being on the outside. Sometimes, teachers would treat me that way as well, or expect me to perform in a way that was just beyond me because of what was going on at home.”

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I told everyone, I was like a child. I knew it wasn’t very humble but I had worked my ass off to get there and I felt so proud of myself and my family. I was offered a PhD studentship that summer and began my PhD studies in the TCD psychology department pretty much straight away. It is society that loses, she points out. “We’re missing talent, vibrancy and creativity. Because I’ve been empowered, I have been able to change my life, my children’s lives. I’m not costly any more to the state. I’m not doing all of the things that happen when you live in poverty. The people who are making decisions are clearly very educated and yet they don’t seem to have the long-term lens on what investing in reducing poverty can do.”

Books UK Poor - Penguin Books UK

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. 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. A really thought-provoking and worthwhile read. Thank you so much @penguinbooksireland for the #gifted copy. Highly recommended. 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. Now you all know the equation of the line so I won’t go over this for you”. My first lecture as an undergrad in Trinity Psychology was statistics. I am sure I will fail. I don’t know the equation of the line. I didn’t even finish my secondary schooling let alone memorise the equation of a line. Sh*t, I shouldn’t have come here.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. 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. One thing that is overlooked when we consider TAP students is our resilience. I know how to survive and that is a skill. I used it to survive maths and have used it many times since. I used my capacity to challenge, to fight and to ask for help to get me through. TAP became a home for me. Irena was my guide, I could tell her anything. The ladies in the office, Sheila and Elaine, provided more care. 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. Addiction, too, is seen as a personal failing rather than a complex issue. “There’s nobody I know who is addicted to drugs who planned that,” says O’Sullivan. “Especially for women with addiction, we do not provide enough support and services. My mother was judged so harshly, more than my dad, for being an addict. We need to look at how we moralise around addiction, and poverty.”

From homeless and expecting at 15 to a lecturer at Trinity

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. I felt ashamed but they didn’t seem to judge me. They reminded me of the teachers who reached out to me when I was younger, or the kind lady in our local shop who would give me food because she knew I was hungry. They told me to relax, that they would help. They paid for my childcare. Most of the time being poor felt like a sodden blanket which was lying heavy across my shoulders dragging me down into dark waters" 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.

One of the best [books] I have read about the complexities of poverty . . . one of the most remarkable people you will ever meet' Guardian 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. I read poor in one sitting ... I found it so complelling. An amazing story ... moving, uplifting, brave, heroic ' - Nuala McGovern, Woman's Hour, BBC