Working Class Heroines: The Extraordinary Women of Dublin's Tenements

by Kevin C. Kearns

Overview

Based on 30 years of research spent interviewing and recording the life stories of the working-class women of Dublin, this book covers the squalid tenement days of the early 1900s, the mid-century decades of ‘slumland' block flats, and the 1970s when deadly drugs infiltrated poor neighborhoods, terrifying mothers and stealing away their children. What emerges is an intimate and poignant celebration of the mammies and grannies that held the fabric of family life in an environment of hardship and, often, cruelty. Through vivid tales of how they coped with grinding poverty, huge families, pitiless landlords, the oppressive Church, dictatorial priests, feckless and often abusive husbands, and these remarkable women shine with astonishing dignity, wit, pride and a resilient spirit, despite their struggles.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780717183517
Publisher:	Gill Books
Publication date:	04/21/2019
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.40(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Section 1

1 Tending to Home and Family 21

2 Making Ends Meet 41

3 "You Must Have Your Roof" 63

4 "Bejaysus, They Had Pride" 81

Section 2

5 "Like Young Lambs to the Slaughter" 97

6 "You Made Your Bed, You Lie In It" 115

7 "Babies by the Bundle" 130

Section 3

8 Unwed Mothers - "Unfortunate Girls" 147

9 "Little Mothers" 167

10 Grannies - The Grandest Mothers 180

11 "Mother Church" 199

Section 4

12 Delights and Diversions 223

13 A Ma Made Christmas 250

Section 5

14 Losing Young Ones - A Mother's Heartbreak 267

15 Drugs-A Mother's Dread 285

16 Solace for the Worn and Weary 313

Section 6

17 Sons' and Daughters' Memories of Ma 327

Section 7

18 When Mammies Die 349

Notes 383

Bibliography 393

Index 399