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'. 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. In a lecture room at Ireland’s most elite university, a woman in a hoodie and jeans, her hair in a messy bun, was sorting out some chairs. A student came in and told her that she couldn’t clean in there because a class was about to start. “I know,” the woman told her. “I’m teaching it.” It is one of my favourite moments in Dr Katriona O’Sullivan’s new memoir, not just for the delicious awkwardness, but because, despite O’Sullivan’s path from virtually unimaginable poverty and trauma to a top-level education, it exposes the truth about whom we believe those institutions are really for. One of the best [books] I have read about the complexities of poverty . . . one of the most remarkable people you will ever meet' Guardian 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.”

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. 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 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.

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.” Under any circumstances, Katriona is someone to look up to and admire for her intellectual prowess, academic achievements and her work in ensuring equal access to education for young Irish girls, but when you read about the absolute dire poverty in which she grew up, she is all the more remarkable. 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.

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. For most of my life I felt like I was at the bottom of a trench. The shame of poverty made me feel like I was wading through deep water alone., but the crucial thing I have learned while writing my story is that in tough times I was being carried. I didn't climb out the trench myself. I was pulled out. Of course I worked hard but without the network of community groups and government schemes, the funding, the trinity access programme, the support offered from colleagues and the state and friends there is not a chance I would have made it af all" Poor is the moving, inspirational and brave story of a seven year old girl who needed love and care and found it with her teachers. Of a teenager whose English teacher believed she was fantastic. Of a young mother who had a caring nurse who encouraged and supported her. Of a woman who becomes a doctor of psychology and works to increase diversity in education. Moving, funny, brave and original - just like the author ... absolutely incredible' - Roísín Ingle, Irish Times Women's PodcastI so wanted her to be one of us, the working class, and I felt it in my gut that she was. I deeply longed to see myself in the structures surrounding me and felt she was a bit of me. I loved meeting smart, successful women who were very grounded in working-class culture and identity, and I knew I was in the presence of someone I could learn from. There's a very striking, moving scene early on in the book and it was a real take-home point from the book for me. A kindly teacher, Mrs Arkinson, took an interest in Katriona from a very young age and recognised the fact that Katriona came from a home where she was utterly neglected. Mrs Arkinson gave Katriona clean underwear and clothes, and a towel, and showed the young girl how to wash herself. Katriona O’Sullivan: ‘I sat drinking in the knowledge, and for the first time in my life I felt alive’ ]

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.” Would she be hungry that day? Would she have to tend to another overdose in the household? Would the kids be able to see the shame that followed at her heels every morning? Would her Da, who she adores, give up the smokes and the drugs and save himself? If he couldn’t save himself, who would save O’Sullivan, and what would their fate be? 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 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.”

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.” Poor] is moving, funny, brave and original - just like the author . . . an absolutely incredible read' Roisin Ingle, Irish Times' Women's Podcast A really thought-provoking and worthwhile read. Thank you so much @penguinbooksireland for the #gifted copy. Highly recommended. 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. 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.

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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. This book will make you aware of the privilege that most of us were brought up with and took for granted… even joked about: mothers interrupting play and calling us home for a hot dinner every day, enduring a weekly bath and being sent to school in starched clean clothes, having a routine and a quite house to sleep in at night… and not wake up in a drug den with a stranger on the couch. So much of what happened to Katriona O’Sullivan should NOT have happened but it did. She is a real life Shuggie Bain.