'My people who were chimneysweeps': UL professor to explore family's past on RTÉ show
Joseph O’Connor’s episode will air on Sunday, May 10, 6.30pm
JOSEPH O’Connor - the Frank McCourt Chair of Creative Writing at University of Limerick - is to appear on a new RTÉ documentary focusing on the 1926 census.
The award-winning novelist will be guided in researching his ancestry by an archivist from the National Archive and a historian.
The show will reveal Professor O’Connor’s filial roots in the Dublin Liberties, unearthing a community that has influenced generations of his family.
The author, commenting on the array of connections he uncovered over the course of research, said: “My great-grandfather, a trade union organiser in the city of Larkin and the lockout. My great grandmother who owned a shop and held a household together. My people who were chimneysweeps and lamplighters and Guinness workers. In particular, the indomitable strength and spirit of the Liberties women, their never-ending courage and resourcefulness.
“The welcome given to the outsider in this oldest part of the city where people born in other lands became proud, hardworking Dubliners. Some had little in the way of material wealth; many had stoicism and strength.”
“My time in the archives on this project was like entering a companion-novel to James Plunkett's brilliant 'Strumpet City' teeming with life, loss and working people's solidarity.”
“I am so touched to have been allowed to read my family's story in census returns and testimonies. And as ever, so deeply proud of my family's Liberties heritage,” he said.
In April 1926, Ireland carried out its first census as a Free State. One hundred years later, the National Archives of Ireland has made these historic records available online, in full and free to the public.
Come to your Census will air on RTÉ One and the RTÉ Player, on Sunday, May 3, 6.30pm. Joseph O’Connor’s episode will air on Sunday, May 10, 6.30pm. Both episodes will be made available on the RTÉ Player.
Joseph O’Connor is a novelist, who teaches the MA in Creative fiction in UL. His novel, The Ghosts of Rome, was awarded An Post’s Irish Book of the Year in 2025.