Summary
‘There is no poverty today. You will never starve. You can dress your kids in Penneys for a few euros. There are loads of places you can go. There is ‘the Brothers’ [religious organisation] where you can get a breakfast and then you get the takeaway bag with bread and rashers and sausages and with a pint of milk and butter and some soup. They give you your breakfast and then give you your dinner a few times a week. You mightn't be able to go out for a drink an’ all but you will never starve.’ (Carmella)
The trip to the religious house is but one of a series of events and practices that take place in particular locations at particular times over the course of a normal week. Children are dropped off at the creche. Groceries, cigarettes and alcohol are bought in local stores. There are visits to the post office to collect a welfare payment and to pay rent and where tea is also taken in the adjoining café on the odd occasion. There are visits to community projects where specialised supports and cooked meals are provided. There are hospital visits and clinic appointments. Lunchtime venues are attended by some. There are unscripted, spontaneous rambles throughout the local neighbourhood. The block is the base to the entire superstructure, in that everything starts and finishes here. The block functions as the roots of the tree, as it were. These events or activities constitute a micro-world and a particular style of life and are defined to a large extent by a set of particular material conditions that shape people's lives.
The weekly excursion to the “other place”, as Rosy often calls it, normally begins from Tina's step. The other place signifies a place and a non- place, in that it simultaneously exists and doesn't exist. That is, that no one or few people know that Rosy and the others go there. Or if they do, they don't say it publicly. This goal of the trip mixes together material necessity, social ritual and habit. There is usually time for a smoke and a chat before departure, and sometimes tea. Sometimes this takes place inside the flat; at other times it is on the step outside. The conversation is peppered with concerns and desires that percolate through the women's lives bridging past, present and future.
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- It's Not Where You Live, It's How You LiveClass and Gender Struggles in a Dublin Estate, pp. 45 - 53Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2023