David O'Mahony: ‘Eviction’ brings up other grim aspects of our history

Many Irish people have found relatives in the workhouse

Birth record of Thomas Leonard in Cork Workhouse

The controversy over the eviction ban has, as many commentators have rightly noted, stirred up visceral feelings in the Irish psyche toward words like “eviction”.

It is inextricably linked to our shared historic experience of the Famine. Many families in Ireland have stories of ancestors who worked on the land or were at some point evicted from the land (or had to sell their holdings).