‘My Ma is dying’, shouted eleven-year-old Robert to his sleeping father as he noticed his mother slumped in her chair where she was making matchboxes late at night to support her family. This is just one of the many case studies that Ciara Breathnach neatly weaves into her exploration of the Dublin City Coroner’s Court records and, consequently, the everyday lives of the inhabitants of the slums of Dublin during the late nineteenth century. The text is thematically divided into four chapters: the first outlines the socio-medical role of the coroner’s court in late nineteenth-century Dublin and situates the study quite comfortably in the historiography of class, death, gender and law. The three remaining chapters are categorised by type of deaths, which Breathnach analyses under the themes of sudden and accidental deaths in domestic locations; deaths in public and workplace settings; and suspicious and violent deaths. This framework has resulted in a vibrant social history of Dublin’s tenement life.

The coroner’s inquest reports are unique because they include material from both above and below. Eyewitness testimonies from relatives, neighbours or co-workers are presented alongside medico-legal accounts, revealing information about the deceased and the incidents that led to their deaths. The individuals on whom the inquest records are based were predominately working-class, who died in a specific city within a thirty-year period. Despite these limits, through a methodologically admirable analysis of 611 coroner verdicts, Breathnach produces a comprehensive study of the poverty-related aspects of death. This assessment of the coroner’s records is triangulated with the urban built history of Dublin and invaluable data from the 1901 and 1911 censuses. Breathnach’s use of these records to contextualise the lives of those whose deaths came before the coroner’s court, particularly those who lived in the tenements, highlights the precarity of poverty in Dublin city at the turn of the century.

Throughout the impressive volume, Breathnach draws on the accounts of those who were close to the deceased, revealing the voices of the poor who are often silent in the archive. These cases, which she handles in a sensitive manner, provide striking evidence of the neglect, danger and perils of life within the Dublin tenements. Reading against the grain of the archive enables Breathnach to demonstrates quite effectively the bleak, or what she terms ‘depressing’, realities of poverty for women and children. This includes the physical threats of the tenements, especially those with which children were faced. The death of a little girl named Jane Murtagh, who fell thirty-five feet while collecting water, is one of several poignant examples in the volume to reveal the harrowing circumstances in which many poor children had to live.

Through her analysis of the treatment of mothers whose children died in tragic circumstances, Breathnach demonstrates how class framed perceived notions of motherhood. The realities of poverty and hazardous conditions in which poorer women had to mother were not acknowledged when such women were under investigation in the coroner’s court. Through the death records of children, Breathnach adds much to our understanding of class-related perceptions of motherhood and reminds us that poor women’s ability to mother their children was often scrutinised and under surveillance to a degree that was much more intense than their wealthier counterparts.

As Breathnach points out, there is a significant gap in our knowledge of the history of fire and fire damage, despite the severity and commonality of household fires during this period. This book offers vivid accounts of family members and neighbours attempting to save individuals, mostly children, from preventable fires, demonstrating in a nuanced manner the hazardous conditions of tenement living, as well as the bravery of many inhabitants when tragedy struck.

Breathnach reminds us that there has been more written about and for, than by, the Irish poor. Yet, through her careful analysis of coroners’ records relating to such individuals in Dublin city, we are given direct lines into their lives and in times of extreme distress and trauma. Perhaps the strongest and most interesting aspect of this study is the heroism of the ‘ordinary’ individual, which shines through these case studies. Alongside some of the very negative aspects of poverty portrayed, Breathnach’s study offers a unique insight into the community aspect of working-class lives. Many individuals attempted to help those around them when they were in physical danger, provided assistance to families in turmoil and stood up to local bullies. Underscoring the dynamics of power and gender in urban Dublin, while providing a nuanced understanding of the role of women in the tenements, this fascinating book makes a significant contribution to the historiography, especially in the areas of death, gender, family and the everyday life of Dublin and its tenement poor.