Raised by addicts, abused, neglected, broke: how Katriona O’Sullivan escaped her fate
Wednesday 17th May 2023
Pregnant at 15, and soon to be homeless, O’Sullivan never expected to succeed – but became a leading academic. The author of Poor talks about everything that conspired to keep her down – and her ‘miraculous and rare’ ascent
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.
What was funny, but also difficult, says O’Sullivan now, “was that I was struggling at that time with: ‘Who am I?’” She had completed her PhD at Trinity College, Dublin, where she was lecturing in psychology and working in its access programme to encourage people back into education. “There’s a uniform of the middle classes,” she says, and she was wrestling with it (a colleague had even suggested she dress more like them). “I just wanted to be myself. I want to wear my hoops, and my tan, and I think it’s important that we see people who are diverse.” She smiles. “So I was being brave, going: ‘I’m going to be me.’” The student read that look and saw a cleaner. “That’s the vision they have of a person from the underclass, or a working-class background. I got up and taught my class, and I was amazing, because I’m a good teacher.”
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