Life In Ireland In The 1930's

2597 Words6 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The great migration during the 19th century

Bill O'Connell

Ms. Weaver

World literature

March 30, 2015

Introduction.

Life in the 1930's anywhere was not as glorious as life today, but one country to focus on is Ireland. Not having good transportation, housing, and resources was a good source of death in a lot of places in that time period, but Ireland was especially important. Ireland was and is still considered a very poor country but today isn't as bad as then. Disease was a very big cause of death with the lack of medical supplies and affected young children the most. (Wilson) A story that would show Ireland's poverty would be Angela's ashes, the book I chose for this research project. It shows what life was really like in Ireland in the 1930's and how poverty …show more content…

It was more of a pride thing like some people have today. It was almost like how we have pride in our country and are proud to be here. They had the same aspect of living. (Wilson) In the decade of 1920's there was a big population drop due to the amount of deaths. From then on forward the population has been rising because of living conditions getting better and better ways to treat diseases. In 1996 the population of Ireland was just over 3.6 million people which was far better than before. …show more content…

Many other men had to go there to work because of World War Two. When Malachy was working in England be again had to go and work in poor working conditions. Even though he is pretty much living without anyone he knew he still drank away the money. As the family waits and worry's for the money they never get it. Everyday they would all go as a family to the local mail office to see if their dad has sent them money for food.

After all the worrying Malachy finally comes home from England, as the kids are playing in the alley. They couldn't even recognize him on a rainy and cold day. Whenever Malachy goes back to England Frank has to get a job to get money to provide for be family. He had to do this because they couldn't depend on Malachy bringing money as he drinks all of his money away.

A few months after Frank gets a job, the government kicks the family out of her house because they didn't have the money to pay for rent. Just like here in the United States many families rented in Limerick, the city in Ireland in which they lived in. The family had moved to Lamans house which was Franks cousin. Angela and Laman get along very well and Angela discusses her feelings with her and how she is worried about Malachy. As the story comes to a close Frank begins to have a passionate relationship with a new

Show More
Related

  • Angela's Ashes Summary

    1449 Words  | 3 Pages

    She was named after Angelus, which were the bells that rang at midnight to welcome the New Year. Finished ninth grade and was unable to be a charwoman her mother tells her, “You don’t have the knack of it. You’re pure useless. Why don’t you go to America where there’s room for all sorts of uselessness? I’ll give you the fare.” (15) So she later migrates to New York, where she meets Malachy. Angela becomes pregnant and her cousins talk her into marrying Malachy. From the start her life was a living hell. From the beginning Malachy drank whatever money he made not providing for Angela or her soon to be born baby. Frank was her first born, soon after she had Malachy Jr. and then a set of twin boys, before giving birth to Margaret. There was happiness after Margaret. Soon after she died Malachy Sr. went back to drinking and she became depressed leaving the care of the four boys to Frank and his brother Malachy Jr. Soon after they returned to Limerick Ireland to be close to her family... They continued to live in poverty, Malachy continued to drink and she had another baby. Despite her acceptance of a drunk for a husband it was Angela who was the only one to raise the boys to be respectful, thoughtful, kind, and hardworking. But it was also Angela who was also responsible for keeping the family poor and hungry. Soon after returning to Limerick they lost the set of twins. The weather in Ireland was cold, rainy and depressing. She begged for food to feed her family and the Church was no help because she married a man from Northern Ireland. After Malachy leaves her the last time she is unable to pay the rent, so she moves in with Laman Griffen. Frank learns of his mother sleeping with Laman. Frank forgets to empty Laman's pot and Laman tells Frank he can’t use the bicycle. Laman ends up beating on Frank and Frank leaves to live with his Uncle Ab. Upset because his mother didn’t do anything to Laman. This is one of many

    Read More

  • Book Report on Head Case by Sarah Aronson

    678 Words  | 2 Pages

    Frank’s Parents: Frank’s parents take countless hours each day helping Frank and making sure that he has anything he needs. They must learn to adapt to a selfless life of putting Frank’s needs before their own. Although this is often difficult and frustrating, they eventually come together as a family to make the best of their situation.

    Read More

  • Irish Immigration Research Paper

    1160 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout the history of America people have been immigrating to America from multiple countries. People have arrived from all over Eastern and Western Europe, Asia and many other places. One country that people had immigrated from was Ireland. The Irish settled into America because of the Anti-Catholic Penal Laws in 1790. Most of the Irish were Catholic so they fled to America. The Irish also came to America because of a summer with constant rain and little sun that in turn destroyed their popular crops. Pushing this further, the Irish came to America because of the Potato Famine. Lastly, the Irish came back to America because of Hart-Cellar Act. This Act

    Read More

  • The Ignored Lessons of Anne Frank

    592 Words  | 2 Pages

    Another important issue that the author brings up is the fact that the Franks were better informed than other Jews about the extirmination camps. The other Jews had no knowledge about these camps, making it a little bit more reasonable for the others to want to stick together as a family. The Franks, however, knew this and they still did nothing to prepare for the Nazis. The author also had some ideas for the Franks to prepare for the invasion when the Nazis came, even though they stayed together. He suggested that Mr. Frank could have had some form of protection, such as a gun; Mr. Frank could have tried to detain the police when they came, while his family could try to run to safety. Sure, Mr. Frank would have been killed of beaten, but he could have done a better job of protecting his family.

    Read More

  • Angela’s Ashes - Frank McCourt's Love/Hate Relationship with his Father

    1439 Words  | 3 Pages

    reader a bad impression of him. As the story moves on, there are. several places where you can see that Frank loves his father, despite his all the hard times he has put him and his family through. Malachy is constantly out of a job, leaving his family to survive. their own through poverty.

    Read More

  • Essay On Irish During The Gilded Age

    3124 Words  | 7 Pages

    The first thing that we will look at is the Irish demographics. The Irish population had fluctuated tremendously over the years. When looking at where they came from, the highest group seems to have been coming from Dublin and Nothern Ireland, along with Kerry County, Ireland as well. Previous to the the 1840's, there were two other waves of Irish immigration in the US. According to the Colombia Guide to Irish American History, the first of the Irish immigrants came in the 1500's due to Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition and the population has continued to grow even since. The third wave began in the 1840's. From census data from US during the Gilded Age, in the 1860's the total number of Irish born immigrants were 22,926. Throughout this time, until around 1910, that number decreased. The number of I...

    Read More

  • Someone Had To by Janice Galloway

    821 Words  | 2 Pages

    At the end of the story, we are left with the scene of Frank holding

    Read More

  • Angela's Ashes Essay

    1254 Words  | 3 Pages

    The mother of Frank McCourt, Angela, is an antagonist. She blamed Malachy Sr. for all of their problems calling him “useless,” “sitting on your arse by the fire is no place for a man”(218). Angela constantly ridiculing Malachy Sr. could be the cause of his alcohol addiction. Angela never made him feel like a man throughout the book she was always putting him down, the assumption of alcohol was the only thing he was really happy about. Angelas constant nagging drove him away leaving his family without much. Also, Angela constantly abandons her children. Her sexual desires caused her to continue having children despite the hunger and poverty they were already facing. Every time one of her children died she abandoned the rest of them, not taking care of them. The children had to survive on their own during her time of grieving. After Frank’s fight with Laman, Angela never once made sure Frank was okay. Instead she goes to Laman,

    Read More

  • Actions after the Loss of a Child in The Sportswriter by Richard Ford

    657 Words  | 2 Pages

    Frank is constantly doubting himself and life because of the elusiveness of happiness for example, “ Is life itself an illness or a syndrome? Who knows? We’ve all felt that way I’m confident, since there’s no way I could feel what hundreds of millions of other citizens haven’t” (p. 135). Frank finds an opportunity to travel to Florida to find Walter’s daughter as he told him in a letter. After staying there for a couple days, Frank finds peace in Florida and decides to stay there in order to start a new life and forget all the troubles back home. Towards the end of the novel, it shoes how the death of Walter changes the way Frank acts and saves his own life.

    Read More

  • Alcoholism and Angelas Ashes

    1025 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Angela’s Ashes, the father Malachy is inflicted with the disease of alcoholism, and his need for the drink leads him to use his paycheck to buy alcohol instead of using it for the basic needs of his family. Countless times, Malachy’s alcoholism harms or gets in the way of his family. Not only this, but Malachy is blind to what his behavior is doing to his family. Because he does not use his money on food for his family, they are forced to beg and accept help from friends and strangers—and yet he is too proud to admit this. Repeated instances such as when he asked the RIAA person for enough money just for one pint—when the money was supposed to be for a cab to get he and his son back to the station without having to walk. Or even when his first child was born and he was too drunk for the hospital staff to interpret what he was saying he wanted to name his son. There are too many of the same repeated episodes—he gets a job, brings home money at first, then just stops altogether and uses it at the pub, he gets fired from his job, and his family is worse off now, they are forced to move or live off the kindness of others. It’s the same cycle over and over again. Lives are lost along the way—the innocents, the children. And still Malachy depends on the drink. He is a constant disappointment—and spirals the family deeper and deeper into poverty over the years, mainly because of his addiction.

    Read More

  • Irish Immigration To Canada

    1473 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Irish began immigrating to North America in the 1820s, when the lack of jobs and poverty forced them to seek better opportunities elsewhere after the end of the major European wars. When the Europeans could finally stop depending on the Irish for food during war, the investment in Irish agricultural products reduced and the boom was over. After an economic boom, there comes a bust and unemployment was the result. Two-thirds of the people of Ireland depended on potato harvests as a main source of income and, more importantly, food. Then between the years of 1845 and 1847, a terrible disease struck the potato crops. The plague left acre after acre of Irish farmland covered with black rot. The failure of the potato yields caused the prices of food to rise rapidly. With no income coming from potato harvests, families dependent on potato crops could not afford to pay rent to their dominantly British and Protestant landlords and were evicted only to be crowded into disease-infested workhouses. Peasants who were desperate for food found themselves eating the rotten potatoes only to develop and spread horrible diseases. ¡§Entire villages were quickly homeless, starving, and diagnosed with either cholera or typhus.¡¨(Interpreting¡K,online) The lack of food and increased incidents of death forced incredible numbers of people to leave Ireland for some place which offered more suitable living conditions. Some landlords paid for the emigration of their tenants because it made more economic sense to rid farms of residents who were not paying their rent. Nevertheless, emigration did not prove to be an antidote for the Famine. The ships were overcrowded and by the time they reached their destination, approximately one third of its passengers had been lost to disease, hunger and other complications. However, many passengers did survive the journey and, as a result, approximately ¡§1.5 million Irish people immigrated to North America during the 1840¡¦s and 1850¡¦s.¡¨(Bladley, online) As a consequence of famine, disease (starvation and disease took as many as one million lives) and emigration, ¡§Ireland¡¦s population dropped from 8 million to 5 million over a matter of years.¡¨(Bladley, online) Although Britain came to the aid of the starving, many Irish blamed Britain for their delayed response and for centuries of political hardship as basi...

    Read More

  • Mathew And Marilla Cuthburt: Summary

    351 Words  | 1 Pages

    Mathew and Marilla Cuthburt are siblings who live together on their family farm, Green Gables, in a town called Avonlea. Mathew is sixty-years-old and feels he is getting too old to run the farm on his own, so he and Marilla decide to adopt a young boy to help him out. When Mathew goes to pick up their adopted son at the train station, an 11 year old girl named Anne is waiting for him instead, due to a mix up at the orphanage. Mathew decides to take Anne home anyway and, enchanted by Anne's spirit and creativity, Mathew tells Marilla that he would like to keep her. After a trial period, Marilla agrees, and Anne has a permanent home at last.

    Read More

  • Ireland: The Invention of Tradition

    1077 Words  | 3 Pages

    In order to legitimise a regime or cause, traditions may be constructed around historical or mythological events, people or symbols that reinforce the image required to focus people’s conception of the past. People can be encouraged to invent a cohesive view of their shared ‘traditions’ by what could be called cherry picking bits of history.

    Read More

  • The Most Dangerous Game And Tobias Wolff's Hunters In The Snow

    693 Words  | 2 Pages

    From the beginning of “Hunters in the Snow,” we learn that Frank has a secret which Tub clearly does not know about. Frank quickly quiets Kenny from mentioning anything about a babysitter, and we later learn that Frank is having an affair with her. While it may not seem that he will have any consequences from leaving his wife for a soon-to-be sixteen year old, the idea that he believes giving up his entire life will not bring him pain shows how focused on himself Frank really is. Convinced that he is “in love” with this girl, he no longer sees the consequences his actions will bring. Besides losing his wife and possibly his

    Read More

  • Home by Toni Morrison

    1113 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... the officials. The reverend helps Frank, by giving him money as well as shoes, because he was bare foot. Good Samaritans also help Frank by providing him with sumptuous clothing and bus fares to get hi m to his next destination. These smaller resolutions allowed Frank to accomplish is larger resolution to find his sister.

    Read More

More about Life In Ireland In The 1930's

Open Document