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

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Katriona O’Sullivan: ‘I sat drinking in the knowledge, and for the first time in my life I felt alive’ ] 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. At the end of the book she makes a challenging assertion. That the likes of the Trinity Access Programme is only aimed at the super-brainy of the poorer classes, like that author herself. (She didn't make those claims about herself. They're mine). The people who are only middle of the road good, AND poor, there's a shoulder shrug. Middle of the road good from middle class families will thrive and survive, but in the TAP they only push the boat out for the super-dupers.

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. MyHome.ie (Opens in new window) • Top 1000 • The Gloss (Opens in new window) • Recruit Ireland (Opens in new window) • Irish Times Training (Opens in new window) O’Sullivan has dedicated her life’s work to changing society for other women like her, but she has rightly dedicated this memoir to herself 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.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.” 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 the extraordinary story – moving, funny, brave, and sometimes startling – of how Katriona turned her life around. During her schooldays there had been teachers who looked out for her – beacons of stability in a chaotic childhood. They planted seeds of self-belief. In Dublin when she sought help, she found mentors whose encouragement revived that self-belief. She got her act together, got a flat and a job as a cleaner, and got into Trinity College. Today Dr Katriona O’Sullivan is an award-winning lecturer whose work explores barriers to education. 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" An important contribution to our understanding of poverty and its impact' - Sinéad Gibney, Business Post

Before she returned to education and became an award-winning lecturer, Katriona O’Sullivan was a cleaner at Connolly Station in Dublin. Moving, funny, brave and original - just like the author ... absolutely incredible' - Roísín Ingle, Irish Times Women's Podcast 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. It’s like I lived two lives,” she says. “A life up to the point where my mind was opened by education. Prior to that, I had no idea that you could be anything different.” She is furious at the rhetoric around poverty – during the past decade especially – that if someone is poor, it is their own moral failing, and if only they worked harder, they could drag themselves out of it. “What I’ve done is miraculous, and rare, because we don’t have investment. If I was in that situation now, I wouldn’t be here.” 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

One of the most important books I have ever read ... a beautiful telling of determination despite the odds' - Lynn Ruane, Irish Times 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 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. 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.Her relationship with addict parents Tony and Tilly is gut-wrenching and yet, because of O’Sullivan’s empathy and love for her parents, my judgment and disdain that I had for them at the beginning of the book falters. There’s no doubt of their negligent, harmful actions. But you are also given an understanding of the turmoil that Tony and Tilly lived through. 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. 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.”

I remember cleaning the toilets going, is this my destiny?” she tells Róisín Ingle on the latest episode of The Irish Times Women’s Podcast. 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.” Possibly biased as I'm one of Katriona's ex-students circa 2012. I always remember how honest she was with us all about her experience of the Trinity Access Program etc., and I was always in awe of her. An absolute powerhouse of a woman. I never knew just how much she had been through until I read this book - and now my respect for her has just soared to levels I didn't even think possible. Katriona really built herself from the ground up. Throughout her life she encountered people who gave her hope by showing her she was worth more, that she deserved more and therefore raising her self-belief. Once such teacher Mrs Atkinson had a fresh towel, facecloth and clean underwear ready for her every morning before school to wash and change. It was this kindness and support from that teacher and many more that got her where she is today.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.