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Irish Examiner
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Irish Examiner
Rosita Sweetman: I was poor when the country was — being poor in a rich Ireland must be torture
Being 'poor' is miserable. Being poor in an affluent society is torture. Ireland is now, statistically, one of the richest countries in the world - but child poverty, or children in consistent poverty, has increased by an astonishing 78% in the past year, according to a new report. And renting a house, never mind buying a house, for you and your children, has never been more difficult. This week the Government serendipitously announced its plans for the housing market where rents on Daft show new build apartments in Dublin (seemingly made mostly of MDF) are €2,300 for a single bed, €3,500 for a double. So what does our delightful new government do? Sadly, far from beating their breasts, saying, our nation's children should not be in 'consistent poverty', our lovely young people should not be beggaring themselves to rent or buy a home, our old people should definitely not be forced to sell their homes and go into so-called 'homes' where they could be neglected or even unsafe, the Government plan to bring in legislation that will enable landlords to raise rents even higher. They say it's the only way to increase supply. In a way, it's not surprising. We've been bastards to each other over property ever since the Famine, when Gombeenism, (ie taking over your dying or emigrating neighbour's gaff) signalled the birth of native capitalism. It's a tradition so ingrained that many of our politicians run side hustles as landlords. Remember the Celtic Tiger, when Bertie and Co whipped the country into a frenzy of acquisition that everyone knew was going to end in a massive crash? And when the crash hit the property boys circled the wagons, bailed out the banks, created Nama. Welfare was slashed. Supports for the vulnerable were slashed. Social and affordable builds came to a stop. Hospitals and schools had their budgets shaved to the bone. New entrants to teaching, nursing, the police, the civil service got salaries a fraction of their predecessors'. Housing regeneration projects in the most deprived areas were abandoned. To top it all the 'poor' were openly derided. Remember a plush, well fed Leo Varadkar and his 'Welfare cheats cheat us all?' schtick? A slogan that whitewashed the reality: since the crash the wealthy have been increasing their take, worldwide. A 2024 Oxfam report showed that billionaire wealth increased by €13 billion in 2024, or €35.6 million per day. It's the dodgy ground on which our current crisis is built. Poverty in the 90s Going through papers and photograph albums recently for my memoir, ' Girl with a fork in a world of soup', I was struck over and again how poor my children and I were in the 90s when my marriage crashed. We were lucky in one way, I'd managed to keep our home (despite vigorous attempts to ensure the opposite by my ex), we had a roof over our heads. But with the charmingly named 'Deserted Wives Allowance' then IR£69 a week, heating the house was not possible. Mould marched the walls. Eating right was not possible either. We went from proper hot dinners to yellow pack pizzas. All our clothes came from charity shops. I had unpaid bills in every small supermarket for miles. "Everything in this house is broken," said the son of one of the school mums who came to visit. She was mortified but he was right. You think you live in a decent society, that there will be a safety net when you fall, but no. The children and I fell and fell through a whistling void. As we went down I sold paintings, rugs, desks, cabinets, more paintings. Anything I could lay my hands on to keep us afloat. I went to the family lawyer to find he was now working for 'the other side', ie my ex. I went to Social Welfare who said they couldn't help since I was still 'technically' married. I went to a GP who said I should take a holiday, away from the children; I seemed "very stressed". Through gritted teeth I explained I didn't have enough money to get to the end of the week, never mind go on holiday, never mind getting someone to mind the children who anyway were also deeply traumatised and would have suffered more if I'd left. I went to the local priest. He almost tore his soutane in half, slamming the drawer of his desk, stuffed with cheque books and see-through envelopes bulging with rolls of notes. Once a film company used the house as a location. When their cheque for IR£1,300 was read by our local bank as IR£3,300 I whooped. Money! When the bank took me to court their representative said: "She went to DID Electrical the next day and bought a new washing machine, and a fridge!" As if I'd blown their precious loot on heroin. Thankfully that judge was just. The case was dismissed. For once, it wasn't Josephine Soap's fault. It was the bank's. For not reading the cheque properly. Hurray! The Dublin housing market When, after 17 years, the children and I were forced to leave our home for other reasons, we encountered the Wild West that is the Dublin rental market. Oh boy. The first home we got was a beauty but at €2,300 a month roared through the money my mum had left us. The next house - about one tenth the size of the first - was a former groom's habitat off South Circular Road. Then it was an old Georgian off Leinster Road with cartoonishly avaricious landlords. When we asked permission to strip out an old and stinking carpet and paint the three flights of stairs white they agreed. Then they served notice. The place looked so lovely it was going back on the market the following week at twice the price. The next landlord was an ex-garda. When he couldn't legally hike his rent he booted us on the grounds his daughter was moving in and charged us for 'cleaning' new curtains, bringing the pine table and the sofa we'd left behind to the dump. When I looked through the window a month later there were strangers, enjoying our stuff with nary a daughter to be seen. When I tried to take up the case with the PRTB - the Private Rental Tenancies Board, it went nowhere, and of course the PRTB replaces all recourse to the courts, so that was that. Happy Gombeening. Rosita Sweetman: 'When, after 17 years, the children and I were forced to leave our home for other reasons, we encountered the Wild West that is the Dublin rental market. Oh boy.' Throughout our shenanigans I had the advantage of being educated. Of having a voice, however small. Imagine the despair trying to navigate this entanglement without those advantages? Being poor is miserable. Being poor and at the mercy of landlords who've basically been given free rein is going to be terrifying for so many. Being the child of poor parents at the mercy of this system has got to be the worst of all. Come on Irish government. We're rich. We have billionaires amongst us. We can do better than this, for everyone. Can't we?
Irish Times
08-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
From that Small Island review: Colin Farrell sounds in pain, as if he pressed on despite urgently needing the loo
It has become fashionable to portray Irish history as one calamity after another: invasion, famine, The 2 Johnnies . Will the horrors never end? But From that Small Island – The Story of the Irish, RTÉ's ponderous portrait of the country from the Stone Age to the present, goes out of its way to avoid such cliches and to show us the bigger picture. The Horrible Histories version of Ireland, whereby everything was great until the Brits showed up, is carefully avoided. Lots of fascinating facts are crammed into the first of four episodes (RTÉ One, 6.30pm). We learn that the original inhabitants of Ireland were dark-skinned and blue-eyed. It is also revealed that the Battle of Clontarf was not the native Irish against the Vikings so much as the native Irish against Dublin and their Viking allies. It was the medieval equivalent of a Leinster final, with the Dubs going down to a last-minute free. But if sprinkled with intriguing nuggets, much about the series is familiar, if not formulaic. Following on from 1916: The Irish Rebellion and 2019's The Irish Revolution, it is the latest RTÉ historical epic to rely on moody drone shots of the Irish landscape, an infinite staircase worth of academics and gravel-voiced narration by an Irish actor. [ 'We Irish were never homogeneous. Always hybrids, always mongrels' Opens in new window ] This gig has previously gone to Liam Neeson , who narrated The Irish Rebellion, and Cillian Murphy , who provided voiceover on The Irish Revolution . Now it's Colin Farrell who goes from playing Penguin to talking about pagan practices in Portumna. But while he does his best to breathe life into an episode that traces the arrival of the first farmers in Ireland and the later coming of the Vikings, he sounds ever so slightly in pain throughout, as if he had decided to press on when he urgently needed the loo. READ MORE From that Small Island has a thesis: that Ireland has always been a globalised nation – neither a destination nor a leaving point, but an international crossroads. In Italy , former president Mary McAleese discusses the influence on the Continent of medieval Ireland's great wandering monk, St Columbanus. She adds that his teachings were key to the founding of the European Union – although she does not fully explain this claim, leaving it to dangle in the dry Italian wind. But grand ambitions run aground on dull execution. As with the Liam Neeson 1916 documentary – which this series shares a writer with, University of Notre Dame's Bríona Nic Dhiarmad – there is a feeling of observing a dry academic exercise made with one eye on overseas audiences rather than something intended to bring history alive for Irish viewers. Tellingly, this voice-of-god style of storytelling has fallen out of favour elsewhere. On British TV, for instance, historians are forever getting their hands dirty and making history come alive by staring it straight in the face. That isn't to suggest Farrell should do a Lucy Worsley and dress up as Brian Boru. But wouldn't From that Small Island be so much more fun if he did? And that, in the end, is what is missing. Irish history is tumultuous, tragic, funny and bittersweet – but this worthy-to-a-fault series removes all the blood, sweat and tears. It belongs firmly in the 'eat your greens' school of documentary-making – and cries out for more spice and sizzle.
Irish Examiner
25-05-2025
- General
- Irish Examiner
New memorial to orphan girls sent from Cork to Australia during the Famine
A memorial has been unveiled in West Cork to remember a poignant forgotten chapter of the Irish Famine story — 14 orphan girls shipped from famine-ravaged Ireland to Australia under a resettlement scheme almost two centuries ago. The monument was unveiled in Dunmanway thanks to the generosity of Heather Northwood, a great-great-granddaughter of Ellen Desmond, one of the 14 orphan girls relocated from the town's workhouse in 1849 to start a new life in Australia under the British government's Earl Grey scheme. They were among an estimated 4,000 young Irish girls, mostly orphans, resettled between 1848 to 1850. Ms Northwood, who has spent several years researching her Irish ancestry with the assistance of historian Michelle O'Mahony, travelled from Australia to attend ceremonies in Dunmanway over the weekend honouring the girls. She is active in the Earl Grey Famine Orphan Group in Melbourne, which commemorates the Irish girls who landed in Australia annually. She heaped praise on Ms O'Mahony and the Dunmanway Historical Association for their help tracing her Irish roots, and for working to ensure the story of the orphan girls is remembered here. HISTORY HUB If you are interested in this article then no doubt you will enjoy exploring the various history collections and content in our history hub. Check it out HERE and happy reading Moira Deasy, Australia's ambassador designate Chantelle Taylor, and historian Michelle O'Mahony at the unveiling at Dunmanway Community Hospital, Co Cork, of the memorial to the 14 orphan girls sent to Australia as part of the Earl Grey Scheme during the Famine. Picture: David Creedon Remembering the girls in Ireland is pivotal to their history and to our wider famine history and diaspora, she said. 'Our family knew we had Irish heritage but I remember my mother telling me a few years ago when she was 98, that she didn't really know the detail, so I set out to find that part of the puzzle,' she said. 'I've come over here three times in the last three years researching my Irish ancestry and planning this and from the moment I arrived, I felt I belonged, it felt like home. "Michelle and the people in the historical association showed me where Ellen Desmond walked as a little girl, where she most likely went to church. 'And I'm delighted to say I was able to tell my mum about Ellen, about her great grandmother, before she passed away in 2024 at the age of 105. She died knowing that piece of the puzzle. Australian chargé d'affaires James Hazell, memorial designers, Justin Walter and Kristie Davison, and Heather Northwood at the unveiling of the memorial at Dunmanway Community Hospital, Co Cork. Heather is a great, great grandaughter of Ellen Desmond who was one of the 14 orphan girls sent to Australia as part of the Earl Grey scheme during the Famine. Picture: David Creedon 'We commemorate the orphan girls in Australia and now the girls are remembered here. There is a shared story now between the place from where the left, and where they arrived. It has been such a wonderful journey for me. Dunmanway has embraced me and said 'this is your town now'. 'It really has been life-changing. I've found my identity.' In 1849, Ireland was only just beginning to emerge from the horrors of the Famine, which claimed the lives of millions and forced millions more to emigrate to the US and Britain. Thousands were living in workhouses, and thousands of children orphaned. The Earl Grey scheme offered assisted passage to orphaned girls aged 14 to 18 to Australia, which had for decades been a penal colony consisting mostly of men. While it offered the girls a better life on the other side of the world, Ms O'Mahony believes it was really designed to address the growth of the population of the colony and address the issue of the gender imbalance in Australia. There were about 800 people living in Dunmanway workhouse in 1849 when the authorities there took up the Earl Grey scheme offer. Ellen Desmond and 13 other young girls, including her sister, left the workhouse just before Christmas 1849 and travelled by horse and cart to Cork city, from where they took a ferry from Penrose Quay to Plymouth in England. From there, they set sail on New Year's Eve with about 300 other young girls on board the Eliza Caroline on a three-month voyage to Melbourne , arriving on March 31, 1850. Then president Mary McAleese laying a wreath in March 2003 at a memorial wall in Sydney, Australia, inscribed with the names of the girls sent from Ireland during the Famine under the Earl Grey scheme. File picture: Maxwell's They disembarked with just a trunk containing a few outfits and were largely left to fend for themselves in harrowing circumstances, with many entering domestic service while others were sent to work as cooks or cleaners in gold mining areas. Ellen Desmond later married miner, Henry Ghee, a free settler from Kildare, and they moved from goldfield to goldfield. They had six daughters, the eldest of whom was 21, when Ellen died of TB in 1879, within a month of her husband's death. Their daughters survived. Ms Northwood said: I am so proud of them all. They were Australian pioneers. She pledged financial support for the memorial monument which was unveiled in the garden of Dunmanway community hospital during a ceremony of remembrance on Saturday — the hospital campus includes the ruins and grounds of the famine workhouse. An interpretative lectern-style sign, funded by Cork County Council's Commemorations Office and Heritage Department, and which tells the famine orphan story, was also unveiled. Australian Ambassador designate to Ireland, Chantelle Taylor, and other diplomats attended. Mass was also celebrated on Sunday in Dunmanway's St Patrick's Church to remember the famine orphan girls, and the wider community's famine victims, and it was followed by a short ecumenical ceremony at the famine pits at Fanlobbus Graveyard on the Dunmanway to Bandon road, which was connected by a gravel path to the rear of the workhouse. Ms O'Mahony said the departure of the orphans from Dunmanway was a watershed moment for the town. 'It was the commencement proper of the town's diaspora to Australia and wider Australasia,' she said. 'It embodied a pivotal change during the Irish famine. 'It offered the prospect of a better life to famine orphan girls and for the guardians of the workhouse who accepted the scheme it was financially incentivising to free up the workhouses. 'These institutions were largely full — in the latter years of the famine with orphans whose families were decimated from starvation and disease. 'Not only did the Earl Grey scheme become part of the narrative of Irish famine history, but it also pointed to a new element of the gender history of the Irish famine and wider diaspora studies.'
Irish Examiner
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Examiner
Book review: Reinterpreting the Irish Famine as a consequence of unbridled capitalism
More than six million visitors attended the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. Held in the cast iron, specially-built Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, this global fair showcased the industrial might of the UK, the world's most powerful economy. But it failed to acknowledge the tragedy unfolding within its borders. During the Great Famine (1845-52), at least 1m people died of starvation in Ireland and about 1.5m fled. In 1847, Britain's prime minister, Lord John Russell, likened the spiralling calamity to a 'famine of the 13th century'. For Padraic X Scanlan, this gross juxtaposition of commercial celebration and human catastrophe encapsulates Britain's ruthless attitude to the Great Famine. The historian's central contention in Rot is that Westminster's response to the starvation was defined by its overarching commitment to the principles of the free market. Underlining the book's polemical tone, Scanlan argues that Ireland during the Famine was a laboratory in which the most exploitative aspects of 'capitalist modernity' were unleashed. 'The blight was a consequence of a novel pathogen spreading among fields of vulnerable plants,' he writes. But the famine — a complex ecological, economic, logistical, and political disaster — was a consequence of colonialism. The dependence of the working poor on the potato in pre-Famine Ireland was unmatched anywhere in the world. Many Britons regarded the potato as the source of Irish poverty, associating the food with the lower classes' innate laziness and lack of civilisation. This perspective ignored the transformative effect of the land settlement achieved by Oliver Cromwell's conquest of the country. In pre-Famine Ireland, about 2.7m people (more than 20% of the population) were landless, while only 4,000 people owned almost 80% of Irish land. Successive Westminster administrations viewed the Famine through the lens of eliminating Ireland's dependence on the potato — and an opportunity to civilise its poor. Charles Trevelyan, a treasury secretary who's often portrayed as arch villain of the Great Hunger, characterised the humanitarian crisis as a 'sharp but effectual remedy' to 'cure' the problem of Irish backwardness. Tellingly, he published his account of the Famine in 1848, just over halfway through the event. Scanlan is an associate professor at the University of Toronto. Reinterpreting history is a hallmark of the Canadian's approach and a refrain in the author's two previous books, both of which focused on the British slave trade. Scanlan adopts a similar angle in Rot and balances wide research into the politics and economy of Famine Ireland with unsettling closeups of starvation. From contemporary accounts, we glimpse the extent of the devastation: people eating wild birds' eggs, rotting carrion, grass, moss, dirt, worms, cats, dogs, and rats. But his didactic analysis is a blunt instrument to untangle the complexities of the era. Likewise, Scanlan's suggestion that current societal problems, such as gaping inequality, exorbitant rents, and insecure employment, echo the anxieties of pre-Famine Ireland is a misstep. In 1861, the Irish nationalist John Mitchel wrote: 'the Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the famine'. Rot revisits the question of British responsibility because 'blame matters'. The British government didn't intentionally starve Ireland during the Famine, Scanlan admits, but 'it was not innocent'. No country in Europe was affected as profoundly as Ireland by the 1840s potato blight. In Belgium, the potato failure caused a severe food crisis, but from 1846 to 1856 the population increased by 200,000. Ultimately, Scanlan identifies the ideologies underpinning Britain's reaction to the Irish Famine as the lynchpin. 'Colonialism and capitalism created conditions that turned blight into famine.' Scanlan's arguments lack the rigour to always convince, but they make Rot a provocative read. Read More Book review: Fleeing Famine and oppression for the land of opportunity
Belfast Telegraph
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Belfast Telegraph
Irish comedian dives into her family history and makes a troubling discovery: They were middle class
In her episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, the comedian is disappointed to hear how her ancestors expanded their farm following the Famine Aisling Bea isn't Aisling Bea at all! This startling revelation came as a major shock before her edition of Who Do You Think You Are? programme had even got going. Her name isn't Aisling Bea. Never mind who do you think you are, who do we think you are? Her real name is Aisling O'Sullivan. She took the surname Bea in memory of her late father, Brian. Like many people who haven't lived in Ireland for a long time, she seems remarkably patriotic. She is 100pc on board with the conventional narrative about how the Brits murdered all the Irish, stopped them speaking Irish at the point of a gun and for centuries denied them the freedom in which they now revel.
