A musician and poet whose love-hate letter about the cost of living in Dublin went viral online has said “561,000 people shouldn’t be able to relate to this”.
Alice Kiernan, originally from Julianstown, Co Meath, did not expect her tribute to the city to strike a chord when she uploaded it to TikTok.
The clip, entitled “My Love/Hate letter to Dublin”, describes her deep admiration for the capital, but also tells of the chronic financial struggle she has endured as she tries to support herself while living in the place she loves.
She now fears that she will never be able to get a mortgage with her boyfriend, who also lives and works in the capital.
The poem reads: “Dublin is everything you could possibly love/ I give it my all but it isn’t enough/ Because lately I felt like Dublin is squeezing me out/ Hungry for my money, my friends, my job and my house”.
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After the 26-year-old posted her 54-second piece, she found she was not alone. Kiernan said she was stunned to get more than a half a million views in less than a week.
Last week she described the success of her letter as “bittersweet”.
She said: “There’s this weird thing where people say, ‘Congrats on your TikTok,’ and I’m thinking, it’s not a good thing. Views are not getting me a mortgage and the comments are heartbreaking; 561,000 people should not be able to relate to this.”
Speaking about her struggle living and working in Dublin, she said: “Sometimes you think you’re the only one and you’ve done something wrong, and you haven’t been successful enough, but then you put up a TikTok expressing that emotion and I’ve had people sending me messages. The comments are heartbreaking.”
Kiernan moved to Dublin five years ago after completing a degree in Maynooth. She is the youngest of two and was living at home with her parents when she got “lucky” and got a job in communications and social media in Dublin.
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Her family had already felt the effects of the cost of living when her 29-year-old sister Lucy emigrated to Melbourne five years ago. “I have TikToks and poems that are about being happy that get 3,000 views but the ones about being sad — the letter to Dublin — they are the ones people are tuning into and do well,” she said. “There were people saying similar stuff though about London, Canada and Australia where Irish people are emigrating to, including my sister.”
Kiernan said one of the first people who found her video was from Tipperary and said she could relate to it. “I was saying, Tipperary? I thought it was OK there. It’s like there is nowhere for us to live,” she said.
