I’m watching Who Do You Think You Are from last night, in which Chris Moyles is learning about his ancestors. He has just learnt that his great great grandmother came from a rural shanty town in Ireland that was all but wiped out by famine. She had 15 children of which 10 died, mostly from diarrhoea.
His grandmother lived in a house in the slums in Dublin with several other families crammed in. A historian explains that there would usually be one family per room. A map shows where the outhouses are — there is one per five houses which would have been shared by about 70 people. One in five children died before their first birthday.
Moyles’ great grandmother was admitted to a workhouse infirmary with TB, and died at 33.
I think we can safely say that economic equality has increased since then. Technology has made this possible.
