Dublin Theatre Festival: Katriona O’Sullivan’s story of triumph over adversity makes a triumphant show

Charting O’Sullivan’s rise out of poverty, chaos and addiction, ‘Poor’ is full of theatrical ingenuity and pure heart

Hollie Lawlor and Aisling O'Mara, both playing Katriona O'Sullivan, in Poor at the Gate Theatre. Photo: Ste Murray

Katriona O’Sullivan’s bestselling memoir has a Dickensian feel: a young girl grows up in abject poverty in Coventry and Birmingham, in a household wrecked by parental heroin use, and gets pregnant at 15. Her family moves to Ireland and she falls into a life of chaos and addiction. But her clever brain saves her; she manages to pull herself up by her bootstraps, gets a university education, a PhD in psychology and a successful personal and professional life.

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