The
Vikings established Dublin in the 9th century as one of its three
great towns of north-western Europe outside Scandinavia. The city
was captured by the English in 1171 and King Henry II encouraged people
from England to settle in the area. By the 13th century Dublin Castle
had become the seat of English royal administration.
In the 19th century Dublin was considerably expanded and was recognised
as the second city of the British Isles. By 1900 nearly 26,000 families
lived in 5,000 tenements. Over 20,000 families lives in one room and
another 5,000 had only two rooms. Of the 5,000 tenements, over 1,500
were condemned as being unfit for human habitation.
The
average death-rate in Ireland at this time was 17.3 persons per thousand
of the population. In Dublin it was 24.8. Infant mortality was the
main reason for this high death-rate. In 1901 an average of 168 babies
died per 1000 births. The average for the rest of Ireland was 101
per 1000 births whereas in London it was
148 per thousand.
The
other major killer in Dublin was tuberculosis.
A report published in 1912 claimed that the death-rate from tuberculosis
was 50 per cent higher in Ireland than in
Scotland and England.
The report added that in Dublin "the vast majority of deaths
(from tuberculosis) occurred among the poorer classes, especially
in the families occupying single-room dwellings."
In
1901 there were 9,397 men employed in industry in Dublin (printing,
engineering, clothing, furnishing and leather tanning). Another 7,602
were in the carrying trade and a further 23,278 men were classified
as labourers.
After
1919 the buildings of the British era were taken over by the recently
established Republican government. For example, the former Mansion
House became the first home of the new Parliament.
(1)
James Larkin, Freeman's Journal
(12th August 1907)
O'Connell Street is crowded with English soldiers, to whom Irish girls
have flocked from the Coombe and other parts of the city, where they
have no fit home in which to stay. People have been lately complaining
in the Press that they are followed in the street by children, or
their elders, trying to gain the tenth part of a penny. It is easy
to understand that people should be annoyed not to be left at peace,
when they themselves are put 'to the pin of their collar' to keep
a good roof over their heads. Nevertheless ought we not all to ask
ourselves whether children go about bare-legged and ill-fed through
mere perversity, and whether it is a natural, legitimate, and inevitable
state of things that some people should be unable to feed themselves
and their families.
(2)
The Dublin Leader (8th October 1910)
O'Connell Street is crowded with English soldiers, to whom Irish girls
have flocked from the Coombe and other parts of the city, where they
have no fit home in which to stay. People have been lately complaining
in the Press that they are followed in the street by children, or
their elders, trying to gain the tenth part of a penny. It is easy
to understand that people should be annoyed not to be left at peace,
when they themselves are put 'to the pin of their collar' to keep
a good roof over their heads. Nevertheless ought we not all to ask
ourselves whether children go about barelegged and ill-fed through
mere perversity, and whether it is a natural, legitimate, and inevitable
state of things that some people should be unable to feed themselves
and their families.
(3)
Dudley Edwards, quoted in the Freeman's Journal (16th March
1912)
It was a regrettable fact that in Ireland (in 1900) the death-rate
from tuberculosis was roughly 50 per cent higher than it was in Scotland
and England.
(4)
James Larkin, speech attacking
employers in Dublin was quoted in the Freeman's Journal (6th
October, 1913)
They take
to themselves that they have all the rights that are given to men
and to societies of men, but they deny the right of the men to claim
that they also have a substantial claim on the share of the produce
they produce, and they further say they want no third party interference.
They want to deal with their workingmen individually. It means that
the men who hold the means of life control our lives, and, because
we workingmen have tried to get some measure of justice, some measure
of betterment, they deny the right of the human being to associate
with his fellow. Why the very law of nature was mutual co-operation.
Man must be associated with his fellows. The employers were not able
to make their own case. Let him help them. What was the position of
affairs in connection with life in industrial Ireland? There are 21,000
families - four and a half persons to a family - living in single
rooms. Who are responsible? The gentlemen opposite to him would have
to accept the responsibility. Of course they must. They said they
control the means of life; then the responsibility rests upon them.
Twenty-one thousand people multiplied by five, over a hundred thousand
people huddled together in the putrid slums of Dublin.
(5)
James Larkin, Irish Worker
(14th January, 1914)
Priest
and parson, politician and press, and police authorities have admitted
that there is a condition of things here in Dublin which is unequalled
in Western Europe. Poverty stalks in your midst; disease is rampant;
vice lifts its foul head naked, unashamed; sweating and overworking
are ever present; underfeeding is plain to anyone with eyes to see;
dirt, disease and death caused by the exploitation of the dispossessed
worker by the unscrupulous unchristian employer; children rot and
die in the slums; women are broken-hearted and degraded; men are dispirited
and debauched owing to the wretched conditions of life. The only cure
is clean honest administration of the city's affairs by clean, honest,
intelligent men and women. Therefore, to you is given the duty to
return such men.
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