Dublin Tenement Life: An Oral History Book

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. Gathering original and authentic oral testimony from survivors, together with the social and historical background and a valuable collection of photographs, Kearns shows what life was like in Europe's most wretched slums. Moreover, he reveals how the tenement poor, despite their hardships, maintained their raw wit and enjoyed an incredibly close-knit community life in which they found security and even happiness. Their accounts are sometimes tragic and always moving, but equally they are an inspiring chronicle of struggle, survival, and the triumph of the human spirit.