Week 4 - The People of Ireland
Read the following extract from the Plough and the Stars, a play by Sean O'Casey, where the beginning of each Act documents working class conditions before and during the Rising:
Answer in the comments section: What picture does this give you of working class life int he early twentieth century?
In the early 20th century Dublin had the poorest living conditions than any other city in the United Kingdom. The streets that had previously held the wealthy- lawyers and bankers of the Georgian centuries- now housed hundreds of the suffering lower classes. As the wealthy moved out to the suburbs, the large Georgian houses were abandoned to the poor. They were filled with illness, disease and malnourishment. Houses were graded from first class to fourth class. In Dublin 22,701 people lived in 'third-class' houses which were deemed as unfit for human habitation.
ReplyDeleteA clear example was Buckingham Street in the north inner city a typical tenement street. The 1911 census returns tell us that 16 houses contained 1,273 people, and 107 households, most of them living in single rooms. Thirteen of these households were headed by women, either single or widowed. Number 13 provides a good representative sample: eight households, all single rooms, except one which is two-roomed, 49 people. Occupancy of the single rooms ranges from three to nine people, with 10 in the two-roomed dwelling. This was the case throughout the city; families cramped into single rooms with a single toilet for several families and water pump at the end of the street.
The mortality rates in Dublin were per 1000 22.3 died compared to London which was 15.6 per thousand. Child mortality was incredibly high with 169.5 per 1000 live births. The unsanitary conditions made childbirth incredibly dangerous often resulting in the mother and or baby dying in the labour. A true example was Marjorie Dixon (48) shares one room with her husband, George (53), a bricklayer, and their five children, ranging in age from 10 to 24. One son is a bricklayer also, and two of the girls are laundresses. There is also a “nurse child”, Thomas Power, living with the family, possibly a relative. Marjorie’s child mortality levels are utterly shocking. Married for 28 years, she gave birth to 13 children, of whom only six survived. The family is Catholic. Men would often remarry to ensure their children would stay out of industrial houses. For those who could not even afford to live in these conditions would be made to go into the workhouse, these were also overcrowded with poor hygiene. The threat of tuberculosis roamed throughout the city resulting in thousands of deaths.
Houses were graded in the census of the time from 'first-class' to 'fourth-class' according to their size and the materials used in their construction. According to official classification, 22,701 people lived in 'third-class' houses which were termed as unfit for human habitation. One inspector described a first-class tenement house at 41 Camden Street Lower occupied by five families, consisting of 20 persons, as follows: "It has one water closet, is in good repair and I regard this as a first-class tenement." The fact that this house has 20 people inhabiting it and only has one toilet goes to show the level of poverty they were living in, but to them at the time it was kind of a luxury. In 1911 Dublin had the worst living conditions of any city in the United Kingdom, the slums were not limited to any part of the city, by 1911 the city slums incorporated Georgian houses on previously fashionable streets and squares. Many of the wealthy people moved to the suburbs over the whole of the 19th century, their buildings were abandoned to the rent paying poor. The tenements in inner Dublin were filthy, overcrowded and disease ridden along with malnourished children. Nearly 10% of housing in 1911 had ten or more rooms which was extremely large for the time. There were 66,662 housing units in Dublin in 1911, 14,518 had 10 or more rooms along with this there were 23,977 one room dwellings, which is 36% of the total housing in Dublin. Nearly half of workers were in Agriculture, in comparison to just 5% today. One in ten workers in 1911 worked as a domestic servant. Crime was also a problem in Dublin there were 1,784 people arrested in Dublin who were connected with the Easter Rising, 76 of them were female. The court martials which were held tried 88 people, including 1 woman. 14 men were executed while 72 men and 1 woman were imprisoned. Of those arrested but not tried by court martial, 947 people (including 3 women) were interned. Mortality rates were bad as well the infant mortality rate was highest in Dublin City at 153.5, followed by Dublin County at 102.
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