Michael Moynihan: Word on the street — class is a greater taboo  than sex or politics

People out walking at the Marina, Cork. Picture:  Dan Linehan

I want to start this morning with the story of John Snow and the infamous water pump in Broad Street, which takes us back to nineteenth-century London.

When cholera broke out in the city in 1854 Snow, a doctor, tracked the disease using maps and deductive reasoning to a communal water pump in Broad Street: he realised the illness was spread through infected water and prevailed upon the local authorities to shut the pump down, which resulted in a dramatic fall in the number of cases.