Grit, Courage, and the Life-Changing Value of Self-Belief

Poor is the story of a young woman as she looks back at the circumstances of her birth, childhood and younger years, through the lens of having been raised by parents who were addicts. The middle sibling of five children, she would become pregnant at 15, abandoned and homeless. And then things got even worse – until she began to find the support and mentors she needed to begin the long climb out of a destiny she desperately wished to avoid.

It is a riveting read, constructed from the hopeful perspective of having by chance – in the people she met along the way – found support and been shown how to save herself and the path to higher education.

More importantly this book is essential reading for anyone considering working with children, for parents and those in higher education who might have a tendency to favour “the good, the ideal” student, to think about how we might uplift and give hope to those who might not fit that category.

Turning Points In A Life

Katriona’s story pinpoints the moments in childhood that mark a life, both the good (the teacher who taught her and facilitated her being able to manage her own cleanliness) and the bad (a man her parents left her with), from which there is no turning back, but perhaps with the right resources, there can eventually be a kind of healing.

Being able to look back and identify those moments that shifted her self-worth, while often devastating to relive, enabled her to understand their impact and address them through appropriate methods, and where they were positive shifts, to cultivate gratitude.

It also highlights the many adults that let these children down.

I know my parents let us down, significantly. The blame is with them. Of course it is. But the world around us let us down too, and in a way, that is worse. Because my parents were drug addicts and that is how it all got so bad and messed up. But the people of the world around us – the police, the teachers, the social workers – they were untrustworthy. They pushed us into a corner and frightened us. How could we have grown up to do anything else but bite them back?
My parents let me down, but so did the world. And the world was where I had to live.

She is one of the few who has managed to climb out, to break a cycle; her story is shared in the hope others who identify, might find the motivation to pull themselves towards something that might bring them out of what is almost inevitable if you’ve grown up in such an environment.

I’d take a heroin addict parent over an alcoholic one any day of the week. That may seem surprising but there is a meanness in booze and horrible unpredictability that you just don’t get with heroin addiction.

It is also for those who have never known such misery, to refrain from judgement, to be open to understanding what happens to people in these situations, how they got there, the consequences and the ineffectiveness of today’s government policies in properly identifying the cause, creating and applying appropriate, sustainable solutions.

This isn’t a tale of woe is me or blame, and neither is it a story of a one-off. It is a demonstration of the difficulty of these lives, and a desire to want to change the world in a more caring and empathetic way than it is now, to search for and find and fund solutions, so that more might learn how to follow a different path, when similar struggles are present.

My education has taught me that choice is a myth: our path is set by history and it is very rare for someone to change that path. I am one of the lucky few who escaped the destiny set for me by my parents’ addiction.

Inclusivity and Diversity, We Must Do Better

She challenges educational institutions to do more to be inclusive of struggling students, to strive for the value of greater diversity. “Diversity brings power”.

Although the ‘same’ opportunities are open to people of all backgrounds, we live in a system where those coming from stable, secure childhoods do well and there is no allowance for the struggle of those who don’t. We need equity in education, not equality. If someone can’t see straight because the world is falling in around them, we need to raise them up to clearer skies…and the truth is, we are losing some brilliant minds in the trenches of poverty.

In an interview with the Guardian she expresses her fury at the rhetoric around poverty – that if someone is poor, it is their own moral failing, and if only they worked harder, they could drag themselves out of it. 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.”

A brilliant and engaging memoir and an important voice in support of educating children out of poverty.

Highly Recommended.

Poor has been shortlisted for two categories in the 2023 An-Post Irish Book Awards for Biography of the Year and for the Listeners’ Choice Award (winners announced 22 November).

Further Reading/Listening

Irish Times :The Women’s Podcast – Poor by Dr Katriona O’Sullivan – in conversation with Róisín Ingle

Dr Katriona O’Sullivans New Podcast POOR discusses issues relating specifically to poor systems, supports, people and process: Episode 1 Intro, Episode 2 But I Think It’s Ok to Say Fuck!

Irish Times Review: Poor by Katriona O’Sullivan, What Will You Do To Change Society For People Like This? by Lynne Ruane

Guardian Interview: Raised by addicts, abused, neglected, broke: how Katriona O’Sullivan escaped her fate by Emine Saner

Katriona O’Sullivan, Author

Dr Katriona O’Sullivan was born in Coventry to Irish parents. In 1998, at 20, she moved from Birmingham to Dublin and subsequently enrolled in the Trinity College access programme. She went on to gain a PhD in psychology from Trinity and joined its staff.

She now works as a senior lecturer in Digital Skills in Maynooth University’s Department of Psychology. She has worked with policy-makers to develop strategies around education and inclusion, and has been an invited speaker at the UN, the World Education Forum, the European Gender Action Workshop on Women and Digitalization.

Most recently, the programme she leads to improve working class girls’ access to education in STEM subjects won the Most Impactful Initiative Award at the Women in Tech Europe Awards in Amsterdam.

She is married with three children and lives in Dublin. Poor is her first book.  

“I needed encouragement to build my life and the tools to give it structure and strength. I needed tools to understand the world and how to think.

I needed an education.” Katriona O’Sullivan