Dublin Tenement Life

By Kevin C. Kearns

Book Overview

In Dublin Tenement Life, historian Kevin C. Kearns presents a fascinating, often heartbreaking look at life in the slums of Dublin from the early nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140296255
• ISBN13: 9780140296259
• Release Date: September 2000
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 237 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Full of memories

'Bang-Bang' and I was right back in the Liberties. So many memories came flooding back. The vernacular of the liberties comes to life in the many oral stories collated by Kevin Kearns. Kevin is an expert at putting what he has on tape onto paper. The mind-set of the real Dubliners shines through in all these stories. As a young child growing up in Piles Buildings, which were wedged in between Golden Lane and Wood Street, I remember going into Siney's shop in Golden Lane. These two streets encompassed my world. The stories are in general told by an older generation but their stories have links to my own childhood experiences. The oral history tradition has a very important part to play in scientifically determining the habitus of groups of people and fixing them in place and time. The oral method shows how to bridge the gap between generations and how to let tradition flow. In that sense, this is a comlpete book. A sociologically timeless book. A book full of memories. A grate buek.

The Stories of the Disposessed

In order to understand the history of Ireland you have to read this book. It shows up the hypocrisy of the authorities before and afterindependence who thought that 17 shillings was a decent enough wage for a working family and that those at the bottom should be grateful for whatever they get.The stories (or testimony) are simply and movingly told. Sometimes sad and often funny we should all be grateful to Kevin Kearns for having collected them.

More reality than Angela's Ashes

Comfortably seated in my armchair in my little condo located on Florida's Suncoast and drinking a glass of cool orange juice squeezed from the fruit I had earlier picked from a tree in my own garden, I settled down to read Kearns' Dublin Tenement Life. A few months ago my sister, vacationing with her husband from Australia, had given me a copy of the paperback edition. She had no comment on it, except that I should read it free from any distraction.I couldn't put the book down. It was terrible in the emotional effect it began to hold over me that started with a quiet interest in the book's Introduction. Nothing very new there, but interesting nevertheless. I then paused to look at the photo sections. That's when it happened. I just started crying, simple as that, for I found myself looking at photos of some of the people and places I knew in my childhood; the streets were I played as a child; the women my mother worked alongside with as a dealer in the Daisy Market; my cousins in the more upscale Iveagh Market; the pub where my dad did a lot of his drinking; the now derelict shops on Winetavern Street Hill where my mother bought her meat and vegetables every day on the way home from the Daisy. An incredible array of images and memories and even smells began to flood my consciousness, all prompted by those photos.I was born in Dublin's Liberties, York Street to be exact, sixty years ago. My mother and father, all my grandparentsand many aunts, uncles and a thousand cousins were all the products of that strange Irish ghetto. The Coombe hospital, another Liberties landmark, was where my younger brother and I were actually delivered. My mother decided that her third confinement be at home in the top-back single room of 34 York Street. My twin sisters Maureen and Noeleen were born just before the Christmas of 1944. Noeleen died a few weeks after her birth. "A failure to thrive" was the summary of her short life as listed on the death certificate.I then read the section on the history of the Dublin Tenement slums. Again, very interesting and factual, but with not much emotional response, apart from a sense of anger at the unfairness and injustice that marked social life in those days.Then I got to the sections on day-to-day life in the tenements and the oral testimonies. What memories came back to me, some wonderful, bright and cheerful, others sad, even gut wrenching in their brutality. I had a particularly hard time reliving the experiences of people being evicted from their homes. My throat was tight and painful as I relived the memories of those experiences. Life in the Liberties was at the same time so wonderful and so very, very sad.A few years ago I read Angela's Ashes and later saw the movie. Strangely enough, even against the background of my own life lived in the Dublin slums, I didn't relate to that book's description of the Limerick slums. Don't ask my why - I just don't know. Yes, I am aware that McCourt's work is a novel and Kearns' book

Dublin in the Rare Old Times

This book is a truly fascinating read! The author, Kevin Kearns, has undertaken to preserve a part of Irish culture that has all but disappeared. This surprising book is a compillation of interviews he has conducted among various former inhabitants of the tenements. The stories they share give a glimpse into the daily life of those "less than fortunate" in monetary terms, but surprisingly rich in compassion, humor and perserverence.Expecting a type of "text-book" or "scholarly" read, I was quite pleased by its lively and entertaining nature. While predictably some of the stories were happy and some were sad, I learned of an entire world whose existence I had only been marginally aware of until I read this book. The stories are powerful indications of a difficult life, but one that former dwellers often longed to return to. The ability of these people interviewed to reflect upon their lives and their pasts in such an open and engaging manner is admirable. Perhaps one of the more surprising aspects of the book was the shattering of pre-conceived ideas. Despite the tenement's historic reputation as filthy places full of squalor and devoid of hope, they also fostered a great sense of community and of affection.It would have been a pity to let these stories and this way of life be forgotten.I would recommend this fine book to anyone who is interested in Irish History or culture. Personally, I couldn't set the book down.