Dublin's Lost Heroines

Dublin's Lost Heroines PDF Author: Kevin Corrigan Kearns
Publisher: Gill
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Kevin Kearns, the acclaimed author of Dublin Tenement Life and other oral histories, has now prepared a masterly work of reminiscence, celebration and sadness. Based on interviews he has conducted during LDEPual visits to Dublin extending over thirty years, he has drawn together a unique picture of women's lives in the old Dublin slums. Tall town houses, originally built as elegant homes for the rich in the eighteenth century, fell into the hands of avaricious and pitiless landlords who filled them to bursting point with the desperate and impoverished urban proletariat. Conditions were often unspeakably vile with massive over-crowding and utterly inadequate sanitation. Yet out of these dreadful tenements families were reared, households kept together and human dignity maintained. women, the mammies and grannies of the Dublin slums whose voices course through this remarkable book. They tell of how they lived, of the difficulties they faced, of the grinding poverty, the unemployment, the fecklessness of their men folk and always of their heroic struggle to maintain the basic decencies of human life in inhuman conditions.

Dublin's Lost Heroines

Dublin's Lost Heroines PDF Author: Kevin Corrigan Kearns
Publisher: Gill
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Kevin Kearns, the acclaimed author of Dublin Tenement Life and other oral histories, has now prepared a masterly work of reminiscence, celebration and sadness. Based on interviews he has conducted during LDEPual visits to Dublin extending over thirty years, he has drawn together a unique picture of women's lives in the old Dublin slums. Tall town houses, originally built as elegant homes for the rich in the eighteenth century, fell into the hands of avaricious and pitiless landlords who filled them to bursting point with the desperate and impoverished urban proletariat. Conditions were often unspeakably vile with massive over-crowding and utterly inadequate sanitation. Yet out of these dreadful tenements families were reared, households kept together and human dignity maintained. women, the mammies and grannies of the Dublin slums whose voices course through this remarkable book. They tell of how they lived, of the difficulties they faced, of the grinding poverty, the unemployment, the fecklessness of their men folk and always of their heroic struggle to maintain the basic decencies of human life in inhuman conditions.

Working Class Heroines

Working Class Heroines PDF Author: Kevin C. Kearns
Publisher: Gill & Macmillan Ltd
ISBN: 0717162702
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 619

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Book Description
In Working Class Heroines acclaimed historian Kevin C. Kearns brings us the voices of the forgotten women of Dublin's tenements. If it weren't for his work the lives of these everyday heroines would be lost forever. Based on 30 years of research spent interviewing and recording the life stories of the working-class women of Dublin, it covers the squalid tenement days of the early 1900s, through the mid-century decades of 'slumland' block flats, and into the 1970s when deadly drugs infiltrated poor neighbourhoods, terrifying mothers and stealing away their children. What emerges is an intimate and poignant celebration of the mammies and grannies who 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, these remarkable women shine with astonishing dignity, wit, pride and a resilient spirit, despite their struggles.Working Class Heroines gives voice and pays tribute to the long silent, unsung heroines who were the indispensable caretakers of both family and community, and remains one of the most important Irish feminist documents of our times."The ordinary woman has long been absent from our national narrative. I think we should be grateful that Working Class Heroines exists, and we can benefit now from listening to these voices.' Ellen Coyne, The Sunday Times

Irish women and the creation of modern Catholicism, 1850–1950

Irish women and the creation of modern Catholicism, 1850–1950 PDF Author: Cara Delay
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526136422
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
This is the first book-length study to investigate the place of lay Catholic women in modern Irish history. It analyses the intersections of gender, class and religion by exploring the roles that middle-class, working-class and rural poor women played in the evolution of Irish Catholicism and thus the creation of modern Irish identities. The book demonstrates that in an age of Church growth and renewal, stretching from the aftermath of the Great Famine through the Free State years, lay women were essential to all aspects of Catholic devotional life, including both home-based religion and public rituals. It also reveals that women, by rejecting, negotiating and reworking Church dictates, complicated Church and clerical authority. Irish women and the creation of modern Catholicism re-evaluates the relationship between the institutional Church, the clergy and women, positioning lay Catholic women as central actors in the making of modern Ireland.

The Bombing of Dublin's North Strand by German Luftwaffe

The Bombing of Dublin's North Strand by German Luftwaffe PDF Author: Kevin C. Kearns
Publisher: Gill & Macmillan Ltd
ISBN: 0717151603
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 631

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Book Description
On the Whit bank holiday weekend of 1941, the neutral Irish capital was suddenly and inexplicably bombed by the German Luftwaffe. On a gloriously starry night four bombs fell, the last and most devastating at precisely 2:05 a.m. on 31 May. There was a thunderous explosion and the earth quaked. Tremors were felt as far away as Enniskerry and Mullingar. Panic and pandemonium reigned in a "city seized with fear". Destruction was astonishing – homes and shops in the North Strand were largely demolished, 2,250 buildings in the city suffered some bomb damage, over forty people were killed, about 100 seriously injured, many more wounded. Hospitals and morgues filled within hours. Almost 2,000 people were rendered homeless refugees. It would later be determined that in terms of destructive performance a monstrous "perfect bomb" had done the deed. For two-thirds of a century, no book was written on what the Evening Herald proclaimed a "Night of Horror". Later called a "seismic event" in Dublin's history. Finally, near the end of the century both the Irish Military Archive and Dublin City Archive declassified their documents on the bombing – some stamped "Secret" for sixty years. At last, the theories and myths long surrounding the mysterious incident would be examined in the light of real evidence. But the heart of a book on so human a tragedy is the oral historical testimony of survivors, rescuers and observers who provide graphic eyewitness accounts. This is a narrative social history of immense human drama.

Letters of the Catholic Poor

Letters of the Catholic Poor PDF Author: Lindsey Earner-Byrne
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107179912
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
A pioneering new 'history from below' of Irish poverty told through the letters of the Catholic poor in Independent Ireland.

The cruelty man

The cruelty man PDF Author: Sarah-Anne Buckley
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526102714
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
Recent debates surrounding children in State care, parental rights, and abuse in Ireland's industrial schools, concern issues that are rooted in the historical record. By examining the social problems addressed by philanthropists and child protection workers from the nineteenth century, we can begin to understand more about the treatment of children and the family today. In Ireland, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) was the principle organisation involved in investigating families and protecting children. The ‘cruelty men’, as NSPCC inspectors were known, acted as child protection workers and ‘children’s police’. This book looks at their history as well as the history of Ireland’s industrial schools, poverty in Irish families, changing ideas around childhood and parenthood and the lives of children in Ireland from 1838 to 1970. It is a history filled with stories of real families, families often at the mercy of the State, the Catholic Church and voluntary organisations. It is a must-read for all with an interest in the Irish family and Irish childhood past and present.

A Year of Glory and Gold

A Year of Glory and Gold PDF Author: Kevin C. Kearns
Publisher: Gill & Macmillan Ltd
ISBN: 0717195627
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
The 1930s in Ireland is often thought of as a bleak period of economic stagnation and unemployment. But 1932, hailed by the Irish Press as a 'new era', was an early glimmer of the modernity and success Ireland would later reach: a sequence of events and achievements that included technological advances in travel, agriculture, home appliances and entertainment; Olympic gold medals and the meteoric rise of boxing phenomenon Jack Doyle; a spectacular Eucharistic Congress; sweepstakes and a so called gold rush; as well as the election of Éamon de Valera and transformations in politics and culture. The soundtrack scoring all this change was the jazz craze, which landed in Ireland in the early 1930s and flourished throughout the country, loosening the conservative social and moral order of the time. Jazz brought new forms of dress, lifestyle and behaviour, exciting and exhilarating a younger generation for the future, while leaving an older generation wary of such rapid change. A Year of Glory and Gold is an energetic and exuberant biography of a bright year in Ireland's history, combining deep archival research with spirited storytelling by one of Ireland's best-loved social historians.

In Our Day

In Our Day PDF Author: Kevin C. Kearns
Publisher: Gill & Macmillan Ltd
ISBN: 0717195600
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
For over fifty years, historian Kevin C. Kearns trekked the rough-and-tumble streets of the heart of Dublin, hoping to record and preserve the city's vanishing oral history. Armed only with a Sony tape recorder, the ordinary people he encountered – street traders, dockers, factory workers, tram drivers, midwives, mothers, grandparents, publicans, jarveys – shared private stories of hardship, joy, sorrow, survival and triumph – with humour and whimsy. In Our Day is the culmination of a life's work – a treasure trove bursting with whispers from the past – 450 vignettes, memories and recollections gathered to present an evocative, poignant portrait of a forgotten Dublin. 'Those of us who know and love Dublin owe Kearns a huge debt.' Roddy Doyle 'Without Kevin, the lives of ordinary decent Dubliners would be forgotten. This book is a celebration of them.' Joe Duffy

Ireland 1963

Ireland 1963 PDF Author: Kevin C. Kearns
Publisher: Gill & Macmillan Ltd
ISBN: 071718076X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
For over 30 years, renowned author and historian Kevin C. Kearns has been recording and publishing the valuable memories and recollections of Dubliners. In his latest book, he revisits the extraordinary year of 1963, bringing to life the voices of the ordinary people who lived through it in a way no conventional history could match.It was a year like no other. Not for any one monumental event, but for an astonishing sequence of occurrences – triumphs and tragedies, joys and sorrows – that spanned all twelve months.Ireland 1963 deftly records the unrelenting roller coaster ride of dramas, traumas and mysteries of that year: a biblical-like flash flood, tenement collapses and victims, the liberating Bingo Craze, and a frightening 'mystery caller' posing as a priest. And, of course, it was the year of President Kennedy's rapturous four-day visit to Ireland.The year reached its climax with fear for thirty Irish passengers aboard the liner Lakonia, "ablaze and sinking" at sea during Christmas week. Yet, a series of happy and frolicsome events throughout the year balanced people's emotions and brought great joy to their lives.Such a bewildering and fascinating year demands a grass-roots type of social history, one that is biographical in nature. Kevin C. Kearns humanises these events by relying on oral history from participants and observers who were on the scene over fifty years ago. Their words and emotions bring a riveting authenticity and immediacy to this wondrous biography of the extraordinary year of 1963.

Your Place or Mine?

Your Place or Mine? PDF Author: Ethel Crowley
Publisher: Orpen Press
ISBN: 1909518441
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
Ireland’s economy is being scrutinised daily by everyone from politicians to pub goers, but what about the deeper questions of Ireland’s sense of identity and community? Socially, Ireland is in a period of rapid change – is it time to get behind the numbers and look at who we really are? In Your Place or Mine? sociologist Ethel Crowley looks at our attitudes to home, place, family, sexuality and community. Do we still need the traditional forms of connection to home, family, community and locality in the highly globalised society in which we live? Do we still like to stay within the heart of a familiar comfort zone or are we willing to push its boundaries? Your Place or Mine? captures some of the complexities of contemporary Ireland. What is the impact of globalisation and multiculturalism? Are community values really declining? Despite a more liberal attitude to sexuality, are we a liberal society? Ethel Crowley mixes warm-hearted biography and sociological rigour to create a set of reflections on finding our place in the world, as a country and as individuals. 'Crowley uses an exciting, innovative approach to identify and describe the cultural transformations of contemporary Ireland. Mixing personal memories with sociologically informed debate, she provides an insightful and imaginative explanation of how Ireland has combined the local with the global.' Professor Tom Inglis, School of Sociology, University College Dublin