Lets go down to Monto - Dublin c 1900 what would you see

feelingstressed wrote: »

If you're interested in Dublin history you might have heard of Pat Liddy. He writes books and does walking tours.
I've never done a walking tour but his books are good.

What can you do


I was expecting you to say something about Irish Bathouses in a derogatory way when they really had theraputic properties for gout and the like.

In the mid-nineteenth century a new kind of Turkish bath was pioneered in Ireland, one that on the Continent is still called the ‘Roman-Irish bath’

Like this Emporium of Steam in Bray




http://www.historyireland.com/volumes/volume15/issue6/news/?id=114148


You might even have taken the Harcourt Street Line -all stations to Bray if you were attending a Ball

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harcourt_Street_railway_line#Trivia

"The Waxies' Dargle" is a traditional Irish folk song about an annual outing to the Dargle by Bray by Dublin candlemakers (waxies). It is a popular pub song in Ireland.




Was Harcourt Street the last stop in 1900



You had a great rail system probably comparable or better service wise than todays.

To visit the crash

http://dublintraincrash.net/

Take me back to Monto
Fr



Massage parlours? Escort agencies? The sex industry is nothing new in Dublin – once upon a time, in one small part of the city, there were over 1,500 “poor, unfortunate girls” servicing clients (including King Edward and James Joyce) and being terrorised by madams. Until, that is, the Legion Of Mary came along. Billy Scanlan investigates the history of the battle for the soul of the city’s once infamous red-light district

From Hot Press -Wow - how times changed - it could have been Stringfellows.

And what about O'Connell Street -well 50% of it was blown up in 1916 -but here is an architectural snippet.

Feelingstressed will be pleased to see he could have a relaxing bath in Hammams Hotel in Upper O'Connell Street

Graham Lemon and Company opened the Confectioners’ Hall at 49 Lower Sackville Street (now Lower O’Connell Street) in 1842. Early 20th century tiling and signage is still present at first floor level, with some letters missing and others hanging loosely, spelling out “E CONFECTIONERS HAL”. The ground floor unit is currently occupied by Foot Locker, with large signage spanning the shop front and projecting to either side.
Lemon’s is described in Ulysses, at the beginning of the Lestrygonians passage, as a stop-off on the thoroughfare for schoolchildren and Leopold Bloom:

Pineapple rock, lemon platt, butter scotch. A sugarsticky girl shovelling scoopfuls of creams for a christian brother. Some school treat. Bad for their tummies. Lozenge and comfit manufacturer to His Majesty the King. God. Save. Our. Sitting on his throne, sucking red jujubes white.

A sombre Y.M.C.A young man, watchful among the warm sweet fumes of Graham Lemon’s, placed a throwaway in a hand of Mr. Bloom.


The shop, along with Lemon’s factory on Millmount Avenue in Drumcondra, appears in the press only during a strike (Irish Times 1960), when a factory worker dies after being pulled into a machine by his coat (Irish Times, 1932), and in connection with minor break-ins, suggesting that its significance in the city’s food history is as a childhood memory or guilty pleasure rather than as a major industry. It also features in memoirs of growing up in Dublin.
In once such personal account of Sackville Street, F.W. Gumley recalls: “But perhaps the most interesting windows of all particularly at Christmas time was that of Lemon’s sweet and confectionery shop. Every year during the festive season one of the two windows displayed an attractive winter scene.”
Brady and Simms name Lemon’s when describing the street’s distinctive character, “strongly retail with a considerable presence of clothing stores” with food outlets such as the restaurants of the Metropole Hotel and the Dublin Bread Company.
Within the same area, Mary Street is noted for having numerous greengrocers and the Bewley and Draper mineral water company, while Upper O’Connell Street also featured large premises for Thwaites Mineral Water and Gilbey’s bottling stores. Shaw lists confectioners at number 45 and 23 Lower Sackville Street, as well as two tea merchants across the road, but food and drink make up a small proportion of the area’s retailers. By 1999, Goad’s Retail Map of Dublin North shows only fast food outlets selling food or drink.
O’Connell Street’s prime rents, coupled with a culture of shopping primarily in supermarkets or stopping in convenience stores for snacks, does not lend itself to supporting an expansive sweet shop. The lure of the window display may also be diminished, with broadcast, internet, print and billboard advertising ensuring that multinational confectionary brands are familiar to children, and convenience stores providing a ready supply of these heavily-promoted names.
Lemon’s opened on Sackville Street after the Gardiner Estate (for which Sackville Street was, according to Christine Casey, the showpiece) had begun to go into decline, beginning in the 1840s and continuing through the century, but in spite of losing the fashionable set to the suburbs, the address maintained a strong presence as a retail core into the 20th century.
The company last showed profits in 1977, and following an attempt by the State to rescue Lemon’s, they were bought out in 1984 and the Confectioners’ Hall closed.
While Dublin has very few examples of retained signage, O’Connell Street is at a significant disadvantage, given that over half of the street was destroyed in 1916 during the Easter Rising, with further destruction during the Civil War. O’Connell Street has only one other example today, and it is carried through a takeover rather than a complete change: the Bank of Ireland branch at 6 Lower O’Connell Street retains the cut stone lettering of Hibernia Bank (taken over in 1958). Perhaps more similar in spirit to the Confectioners’ Hall sign, the Hammam Buildings at 11-12 Upper O’Connell Street provides a nod in name to its previous existence as the Hammam Hotel and Turkish Baths, destroyed in 1922 during the Civil War.

The Confectioners’ Hall stands in contrast to the contemporary signage of the ground-floor premises and the adjoining businesses - there is no danger of confusion between the signage and the current use, and rather than communicating per its original purpose, the signage provides a small historical footnote in plain sight for those who look above the present shop fronts.

http://www.architecturefoundation.ie/2010/02/26/the-confectioners-hall-oconnell-street-lisa-cassidy/

The Confectioners Hall mentioned here is now FootLocker O'Connell Street

Now I want to throw another spanner into the works here

This fella is not dressed to visit a convent - but how does he describe brothels

That summer was a very important one in Joyce's life. For some time he had been having "impure" thoughts and feelings and decided finally to throw off the hypocrisy of the church. He began visiting brothels in Dublin, experimenting with his awakening sexuality. This was the real point in which he turned away from the Catholic church. In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce makes this statement, roughly equating to this point in his life:

https://www.users.muohio.edu/shermalw/honors_2001_fall/honors_papers_2000/smith.html

Queen Victoria also came here on holiday in 1900



http://www.achart.ca/hibernian/review.html


http://www.chaptersofdublin.com/books/General/victoria.htm



On 30 November 1900 Oscar Wildes wallpaper decided it had enough of him.

Were there male prostitutes in Dublin too???????

So we can see that Dublin was a quite a vibrant city around 1900 and if anything the numbers of prostitutes had fallen since 1870 -now they didn't all become nuns.

I cant find any stories for Irish Prostitute life styles or the life styles of the underclass on the internet -with the exception of poor Mary Jane Kelly the last known victim of Jack the Ripper

So in context this is what was happening around Europe

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=66826212&postcount=80

<H3>Abstract

The Inebriate Act passed in 1898 enabled local authorities to set up State and Certified Reformatories to treat habitual drunkards over a two to three year period as an alternative to a short prison sentence. A large proportion of offenders sentenced under this Act were women. This development has been a somewhat neglected area of social policy, perhaps because it was a short-lived experiment and few local authorities chose to take up the option; although institutional treatment was enthusiastically supported by members of the Society for the Study of Inebriety who campaigned tirelessly to extend the powers of the Act. This legislation is an interesting subject both because of the regimes that were developed to treat inebriety and also because it was one of the few attempts that were actually put into practice to impose an institutional solution on the problem of the 'undeserving' poor. This paper looks at the methods of treatment to be found in the reformatories and the way in which the campaign was proselytised in the Society's journal. We examine the records of one female reformatory run by the London County Council in an attempt to illustrate the characteristics and social backgrounds of women found in the reformatories. Finally, we make some tentative suggestions which might account for the fact that, although more men than women were prosecuted under the Act, the institutional solution was used predominantly for women

. </H3>Some mental health stats from the period and the powers to incarcerate

http://www.hrb.ie/uploads/tx_hrbpublications/Mental_Illness_in_Ireland.pdf

Binge Britain 1904: The rogues' gallery that shows war on booze is nothing new



By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 2:02 AM on 27th March 2010




Angry, bewildered and shame-faced these Edwardian drunks stare into the lens of the police camera.
They were 'habitual drunkards' whose offences included being caught while in charge of a horse, carriage and even a steam engine.
Issued a century ago, the drunks were given the equivalent of modern-day Asbos in that they were banned from being served in pubs because of their past behaviour.

Information was compiled by the Watch Committee of the City of Birmingham, which was set up by the police to enforce the Licensing Act of 1902.
The act was passed in an attempt to deal with public drunks, giving police the power to apprehend those found drunk in any public place and unable to take care of themselves


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1260872/Ancestry-Edwardian-Englands-drunkards.html#ixzz0u9f3suy6

You also had infectious diseases -this article on Scandanavia references Ireland -TB VD -the lot

http://www.ep.liu.se/ej/hygiea/v6/i2/a08/hygiea07v6i2a8.pdf

Now I knew a young woman a few years back who with a reasonable job did supplement her income by selling sex. I could not understand it myself and did not think it was something that was a locking up offence.

And the Spooky Statue Story

MONTO STATUE'S SPOOKY SECRETS; Jesus figure smashes in old red light area.

Byline: RITA O'REILLY

STRANGE goings-on have been reported in a former red light district since a statue of the Sacred Heart was accidentally smashed, it was claimed yesterday.

Builders removing the statue from the area of Dublin once known as Monto said they got the fright of their lives when it appeared to jump from their hands.

And locals reported a series of unexplained events since the figure taken away from the building in Mabbott Lane, near Talbot Street and Gardner Street.

Builders Kieran McCrory and Dermot Murphy claim that when they were moving the statue the sky darkened and it fell from their hands.

But as they tried to put the pieces into a skip a picture frame was caught by the wind and flew towards the

One resident said: "It was like a scene from The Omen when a man's head was cut off by a sheet of glass."

Terry Fagan of the Dublin City Folklore Centre took the pieces to sculptor Gerry Pickett and both have now reported strange happenings since they came in contact with it.



Mr Fagan said the statue has watched over the notorious lanes and alleys of the north-inner city area for 75 years. He said: "In 1925 Frank Duff and the Legion of Mary

The Legion of Mary (Latin: Legio Mariae) is an association of Catholic laity who serve the Church on a voluntary basis. marched into the area and staged a takeover of the brothels and street corners, dedicating the fall of Monto to the Sacred Heart.

"The Legion placed the statue on top of the tallest building to protect the area from all evil."

Mr Pickett claims that as he restored the statue he sensed a strange smell, and a calming atmosphere in his studio.

He said: "There was this beautiful aroma coming off it. It's hard to describe, but it had a very, very calming effect."

Terry Fagan claimed yesterday that when he took photographs of the broken statue parts, an image similar to the Shroud of Turin The Shroud of Turin (or Turin Shroud) is a linen cloth bearing the image of a man who appears to have been physically traumatized in a manner consistent with crucifixion. It is being kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy. appeared superimposed in one of them.

In the early years of the last century Monto contained dozens of brothels and was regularly condemned from the pulpit as "the devil's residence in Ireland".

Through a warren of wine cellars and underground passages lords, earls and even the King of England got in and out of Monto - then the most infamous late-drinking sex den in Europe.



GUARDIAN: Figure overlooked Monto before it fell and smashed; SAVED: The statue lay in rubble before Gerry Pickett restored it; PIECED TOGETHER: Terry Fegan with the statue after it had been restored

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/MONTO+STATUE'S+SPOOKY+SECRETS%3B+Jesus+figure+smashes+in+old+red+light...-a088299074

A few bits that intrigued me about 1900 -the lion cubs (the red setter may or may not have been a nun) and people knew when a century ended and a new one begun.

January 16 - Three lion cubs reared by an Irish red setter go on view at Dublin Zoo
January 17 - The different sections of the Nationalist Party meet in the Mansion House's Oak Room to promote national unity.
February 28 - Unofficial figures show that the Dublin Fusiliers suffered the most in the Second Boer War .
March 12 - The 45th Company of the Imperial Yeomanry leave Dublin for service in South Africa.
March 17 - In celebration of St. Patrick's day, the Lord-Lieutenant accompanied by his staff reviews a military display in the yard of Dublin Castle, followed by a meal and a ball in St. Patrick's Hall that evening.
April 4 - Queen Victoria arrives at Kingstown and travels to Dublin where she is greeted by the Lord Mayor and members of the Corporation.
April 7 - 52,000 children greet Queen Victoria at the Phoenix Park in Dublin.
April 23 - At a meeting in Loughrea Douglas Hyde complains of the rapid Anglicisation of the country and the loss of the language.
May 13 - The rift in the Irish Parliamentary Party is healed as John Dillon and John Redmond share a platform for the first time in 10 years.
July 5 - The British War Office issues a list of Irish prisoners from the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers. It names 473 men from 8 companies.
November 30 - Oscar Wilde, dramatist and wit, dies in poverty in Paris aged 46.
December 31 - There are special ceremonies all over the country to mark the closing of the 19th century and the dawning of the 20th century.
Edward Carson becomes Solicitor General for England and Wales and is knighted.[1]

People born in 1900 -the stand outs for me are Sarah Makem who was an important archivist and ballad singer in her own right - Tommy Makems mother and Noel Purcell the Actor.

James Ennis listed as cricketer became an unsucessful Fine Gael candidate. It was the cricket that held him back -no doubt.

So people were born and lived happy and productive lives too.

• 10 January - Harry Kernoff, artist (d.1974).
• 19 January - Frank Devlin, badminton player (d.1988).
• January - Michael Donnellan, founder of Clann na Talmhan and TD (d.1964).
• 22 February - Sean O'Faolain, short story writer (d.1991).
• 27 February - James Ennis, cricketer (d.1976).
• 6 March - Mark Deering, Fine Gael TD (d.1972).
• 25 May - John Hunt, expert on mediaeval art. 10 July - Paul Carroll, playwright.
• 17 July - Paddy Smith, Fianna Fáil TD and longest-serving member of Dáil Éireann (54 years) (d.1982).
• 22 July - Michael Davern, Fianna Fáil TD for Tipperary South 1948–1965. (d.1973)
• 2 October - Hubert Butler, writer and historian (d.1991).
• 18 October - Sarah Makem, traditional singer (d.1983).
• 23 October - Paddy Ahern, Cork hurler (d.1971).
• 19 November - Pamela Hinkson, writer.
• 4 December - Tom Farquharson, soccer player (d.1970).
• 23 December - Noel Purcell, actor (d.1985).

Sir Charles Cameron was the Chief Medical Officer for Dublin for over 30 years . Now his comments compare the conditions in hospitals and asylums where the death rate was twice that in Britain and housing etc.

He also notes the lack of work available for women.

His book on line is quirky and anecdoatal .


During the 32 years that I have been the Chief Health Officer of Dublin, I have seen much of life amongst the poor and the very poor, and I have many remembrances of painful scenes that I have witnessed in their miserable homes.
I have long been of opinion that the proportion of the population belonging to the poorest classes is greater in Dublin than it is in the English and Scotch towns. There are many proofs of the poverty of a considerable proportion of the population of Dublin. For example, in 1911 41.9 per cent of the deaths in the Dublin Metropolitan area occurred in the workhouses, asylums, lunatic asylums, and other institutions. In the English towns the average proportion of the deaths in institutions is about 22 per cent.
Another proof of poverty is the large number of families who reside each in a single room – 33.9 per cent of the total families. [Census of 1911] In Belfast, with few exceptions, each family occupies more than one room. In many of the English towns not more than 10 per cent of the families occupy but one apartment.
Tenements are generally placed under insanitary conditions. Dr. Russell, Medical Officer of Health, has shown that the dwellers in these tenements (or "houses" as they are termed in Scotland), consisting of a single apartment, have a much higher death rate than is the case of those who have two or more rooms. It has also been proved that the one-room denizens suffer more from tuberculosis of the lungs.
Whilst desirous that the artisans and their families should have healthy dwellings, I have been far more anxious about the condition of the labourers and other workers at small wages. I have always maintained that it is only for these workers municipalities should provide dwellings, even at some cost to the ratepayers. The expenditure of public money in the erection of dwellings to be let at from 3/6 to 7/6 per week does not benefit the whole community. The persons who are able to pay such rents should be allowed to deal with the ordinary house owners.
In the case of one-room tenements, the occupants are usually very poor, and unable to pay for more accommodation. The wages of unskilled labourers are rarely more than £1 per week; many earn only from 15/- to 18/- weekly.
Even when the labourer is a sober man, and has a small family, he cannot enjoy much comfort on the higher rate of wages. When he is of the inferior order, has a large family, and precarious employment, it is easy to imagine his deplorable condition. Now, if the Municipality provided for this class of worker a two-apartment dwelling at 2/6, or if possible 2/-, per week, though at some expense to the ratepayers, the general public would at least be benefited from a health point of view.
In the homes of the very poor the seeds of infective disease are nursed as it were in a hothouse. They may spread from the homes of the lowly to the mansions of the rich. Insanitary homes cause illness and consequent poverty, and poverty causes the poors rate to go up.
The poverty of a considerable proportion of the population is shown by the large number of persons who are obliged to resort to the pawnbroker - "the banker of the poor." No inconsiderable number of the poor get out of their beds, or substitutes for them, without knowing when they are to get their breakfast, for the simple reason that they have neither money nor credit. They must starve if they have got nothing which would be taken in pawn. But articles of very small value will be accepted by the pawnbroker, and some item or items of a slender wardrobe are exchanged for the price of one or more meals. So small a sum as sixpence may be obtained in this way. When work is procured the articles are, as a rule, released from pawn.
The number of articles pawned in the City of Dublin is very large. From enquiries which I made some years ago I ascertained that in a single year 2,866,084 tickets were issued, and the loans to which they referred amounted to £547,453, or at the rate of £2 4s per head of the population. By far the larger proportion of the borrowers belonged to the working classes. Some families pawn their clothes regularly every week, thus living a few days in advance of their income.
The ordinary money-lender may charge any amount of interest on his loans - 60 per cent is not uncommon; but the interest charged by the pawnbroker is limited by law to 5d per £ per month for sums under £10. A month's interest may be charged though the article may be redeemed within a shorter period.
The general state of things is the following:- The artizan or labourer is out of employment, perhaps for a week or a few weeks. How is he and his family to live until he regains employment? He may not be able to get credit with the food purveyors, and if he does he will, as a rule, be charged more on credit than he would for ready money. To persons so situated the pawnbroker is often the only "friend in need," failing whose assistance the resource might be the workhouse.
The business of the pawnbroker is one of great antiquity, as may be seen in the story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis xxxviii. 18.
Many thousands of families have weekly incomes not exceeding 15s. There are instances where the income is as low as 10s. and even less. Here is an example:- A family, man and wife, resides in Dame Court. His occupation is that of a tailor, but he can only earn 10s. a week. His rent is 2s. 6d., which leaves 7s. 6d. for food, fuel, light, clothes, bedding, etc. Their breakfast consists of dry bread and tea. They have only another meal, dinner and supper combined: it consists of dry bread and tea and herrings, occasionally porridge. It may appear strange that a tradesman could earn only 10s. per week; but such is often the case owing to irregular employment and the poor payment for the making of the cheaper kind of clothes. Shoemakers frequently can only make from 15s. to 20s. a week, owing to the reduced price for hand-made shoes. The use of machinery in the manufacture of boots and shoes has greatly lessened the earnings of the shoemakers who work in their own homes. The great majority are living in very inferior dwellings, and they have but a poor diet. On the whole, they are no better off than the labourers.
I have rarely met a poor man of mature age who was a celibate. A man's desire for matrimony appears to be inversely to his means for maintaining a family. It is rich men who remain in so-called "single blessedness."
Dublin is not much of a manufacturing city. Its importance is due to being the centre of the Local Government of Ireland, the seat of the Superior Courts of Law, the headquarters of the Medical Profession, and the Banking and Insurance business, the seat of two Universities, and its large business as a port. There is comparatively less work for females in Dublin than in most English towns.
The disadvantage of want of employment for women is the smaller average earnings of families, with consequent lower standard of diet, lodging and clothing.
Amongst the labouring population the children are worst off for proper clothing. They rarely get new articles to wear, and are frequently clothed in the worn-out garments of their parents, ill-adjusted to the size of their new wearers.
Thousands of children go with naked feet even in winter. The want of warm clothing in winter often lays the foundation of future delicacy, and renders them less liable to resist the attacks of disease. The want of good food and warm clothing often causes the fatal sequelae to attacks of measles. Amongst the rich this disease is rarely fatal; but the children of the poor offer up many victims to it - not so much during the attack, but in bronchial and other affections which supervene as consequences of neglect, insufficient clothing and nourishment. The Police-Aided Society for Providing Clothes for Poor Children performs good work in Dublin, and deserves more support than it receives from the general public.
A humorist once said that half the population of Dublin are clothed in the cast-off clothes of the other half. This is true to a large extent.
The diet of the labourers, hawkers, and persons of the same social position is generally very poor and insufficient. The constant items are bread and tea. Butter is not always obtainable. Cocoa is largely used; coffee, never. Very little home-made bread is used. The bakers' bread is of good quality, for even the very poor will not purchase inferior bread. Oatmeal porridge is not so generally used as it ought to be.
Indian corn, formerly much employed in the dietary of the poor, now rarely enters into their cuisine.
Beef and mutton are not often found on the tables of the poor. When they are it is generally for the breadwinner of the family. They are fried or boiled, for there is no way of roasting them. Pork is not much in demand, except in the form of "crubeens," or feet of the pig. Bacon is largely used, sometimes as rashers, but more frequently it is boiled with cabbage. The inferior American kind is, owing to its cheapness (5d. or 6d. per lb.), mostly in use.
Puddings, pies, and tarts are practically unknown. There are no ovens to bake them in, nor, as a rule, any knowledge of how they should be made. In very few of the primary schools for girls is cooking taught.
As regards vegetables, few kinds, except potatoes and cabbage, are used. Peas and beans are rarely seen on the table of a labourer's family.
The milk frequently used is condensed skim milk, which is purchased at 1d. to 3d. per tin. There is no fat (the most valuable constituent of milk) in separated milk, and it is, of course, quite unsuitable for infants. The proportion of condensed whole milk to condensed separated milk is very small. The women have been cautioned not to feed infants with the separated milk.
Owing to the scarcity of employment for women, the vast majority of them remain at home, and can, therefore, unlike factory women, nurse their children. The proportion of bottle-fed to "nursed" children is not large in Dublin, and greatly accounts for the comparatively low infantile mortality in a city where the adult death-rate is so high.
Milk is much used in the diet of children of all ages, and it is largely the condensed separated milk which the elder children use. This article, of course, is very inferior to the condensed whole milk, and although the former costs much less, the whole milk is the proper kind for children.
Not much fruit appears on the tables of the poor. Oranges and apples are sometimes given as a treat to their children. They also get inferior kinds of sweetmeat. Amongst the very poor fruit and sweets are practically unknown.
As is well known, there is a large consumption of whisky and porter amongst the labouring classes. In many instances an undue proportion of their earnings is spent on these beverages, with consequent deprivation of home comforts and even necessaries.
The workman is blamed for visiting the public-house, but it is to him what the club is to the rich man. His home is rarely a comfortable one, and in winter the bright light, the warm fire, and the gaiety of the public-house are attractions which he finds it difficult to resist. If he spends a reasonable proportion of his earnings in the public-house, is he more to be condemned than the prosperous shopkeeper or professional man who drinks expensive wines at the club or the restaurant, spends hours playing billiards or cards, and amuses himself in other expensive ways?
At the same time, it cannot be denied that there is,too much intemperance amongst the working classes, and that the women, who formerly were rarely seen intoxicated, are now frequently to be observed in that state. The publicans themselves dislike drunkards. Their best customers are the men who spend a moderate proportion of their wages in drink, for the drunkards lose their situations, or, if tradesmen, neglect their work, and thereby reduce their incomes.
I give a few examples of the diet of the poor. They are not exceptional ones:- Click here for Table.
It is not in the power of the Sanitary Authorities to remove many of the evils from which the poor suffer. They cannot augment their deficient earnings: they can only employ a very small proportion of them as labourers in the various civic departments. They can, however, soften the hard conditions under which the poor, especially the very poor, exist. How? By providing them with homes superior to those they now have, without increasing their rents. The most urgent want of the labourers and the poorer tradesmen is better dwellings. This is a measure that should be carried out liberally.
Consumptives are not kept for any length of time in the general hospitals, and but very few gain admission to the Consumption Hospital at Newcastle. They are, therefore, obliged to live with their families, sleeping in the same room with other persons, and infecting them. The operation of the Insurance Act now provides treatment for the poor consumptives.
If it were possible to provide the very poor children, who are now obliged to go to school, with a meal, much good would result. There is little doubt that many of the school-children have to learn their lessons on empty stomachs.
Madame Gonne has recently organised a society with the object of providing a daily meal for poor children.
I would like to bear testimony to the wonderful kindness which the poor show to those who are still poorer and more helpless than themselves.

Dublin 1900 does not seem like such a bad place if you were a skilled worker or middle class. The lack of cars might even make the Green Party nostalgic for Sackville Street.



Even some pleasant passtimes

Although some keyholder parks have 18th century origins, the public parks of Ireland are a 19th century product – when Ireland as a whole was part of the United Kingdom. Any meaningful study needs to be undertaken in that context and not as if Ireland was a colony, which she was not. Irish gardeners (along with the Scots who dominated gardening in the 19th century) did however play an important in the creation of public gardens in the colonies – that might be a more meaningful study

http://www.gardenhistorysociety.org/post/forum/victorian-and-edwardian-public-parks-in-ireland/

<H1>A magical look at a bustling Edwardian Ireland

• 
  
  
  
  
  By John A Muprhy
  

Sunday December 25 2005

THE programme Sweet Cork of Thee (the title is from the former Cork Anthem The Bells of Shandon) will be screened on RTE Two on Christmas Night, at 8.10pm. The producer and narrator is Pat Butler, distinguished veteran documentary-maker whose name is a virtual guarantee of quality production. This fascinating half-hour programme is based on the century-old camerawork of British film-men Mitchell and Kenyon, 800 reels of whose presumed-lost stock was discovered in a Blackburn basement in 1995 and painstakingly prepared for transmission by the British Film Institute.
This pioneering duo filmed ordinary people at work and play all over the British Isles and then showed the results to these same people in local halls "for a trifling entrance fee"!
Sweet Cork of Thee captures the bustling everyday life of the city between 1901 and 1903 and it presents an extraordinary contrast to the desolate scenes depicted in Conal Creedon's recent The Burning of Cork in 1920. The teeming crowds of Edwardian Cork, pictured in remarkable detail, seem animated, prosperous - and British! The Union Jack flutters from shop fronts and river launches, and deference is shown to visiting royal representatives.
Does all this reveal a loyalist city forgotten or concealed by nationalist resurgence 15 years on? Not really. Mitchell and Kenyon were concerned only with filming the passing social scene and a fairly middle-class one at that. The political dimension was not their business and they would have neither known nor cared that the city's nationalist feelings were still strong and being eloquently voiced by local hero and maverick MP, William O'Brien. All the same, this film footage makes you feel that Edwardian Cork would have been more than happy to accept Home Rule within the Empire. But this is not a programme for political analysis but one to be enjoyed (and videotaped) for its magical cinematic recall of the light of other days and for its rich archival material in great technical condition. It is awash with Cork nostalgia (who was it said Cork people are homesick even when they are at home?). Enhanced by evocative period songs and perceptive commentary from three well-known natives, Theo Dorgan, Dan Donovan and Grace Neville. But this is simply gripping television for everybody and not to be missed.
John A Murphy is Emeritus Professor of Irish History at UCC
- John A Muprhy

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/a-magical-look-at-a-bustling-edwardian-ireland-475750.html

</H1>


Its not what I expected.

Now thats not to say relative to mainland Britain -Ireland had it good -because that is not so. I wonder how the Irish compared to the Italians,Poles or even Balkan States of that era.

It does not seem to live up to the hype.

I came accross the Story of the writing of Monto by George Hodnett music critic of the Irish Times and jazz player in 1958.

I have cut and pasted the best bits but there is more .


http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=36178

I have a booklet published by The Mercier Press in 1978 The Story of Monto by John Finegan (about 50 years too late for any sex-tourists!).It tells the story of Dublin's red-light district, as made famous in Ulysses and in other books such as Gogarty's Tumbling in the Hay. Anyway the author quotes an interview with the writer of the ballad Take me up to Monto, George Desmond Hodnett, music critic of the Irish Times. The song was written in 1958 as "taking off one of the stock types of folk and ballad tunes...The tune has now reached the point when it has become the folk song it originally aimed at satirising."

Montgomery Street, near the Custom House, was reputed to be the biggest red-light district of its kind until its closing down occurred in 1925. The song itself, with its child-like, almost nursery-rhyme style delivery, is quite amusing but if the words are examined, it can be seen to be quite a clever and sometimes very sharp view of some recent historical events. The first verse is principally praising alcohol. In the second verse "Butcher Foster - the imposter", is Chief Secretary Forster, more usually known as "Buckshot". He had introduced Coercion Acts in the late 19th Century which allowed people to be arrested and imprisoned on suspicion of being involved in criminal activity. He was not a very popular individual which can be seen in the unfavourable way he is presented in the song. The bowler connects him to the crown and to loyalism, the growler to the English "Bulldog".

"Skin the Goat" was the nickname of James Fitzharris, the cabman who drove the murderers of Lord Cavendish and T.H.Burke to and from the Phoenix Park. He was sentenced to penal servitude for conspiracy because he refused to identify his passengers. Patrick O'Donnell, in another song was "a deadly foe to traitors". He had met the informer James Carey, who although he had played a leading in the murders, was freed for turning Queen's Evidence. Of the 27 members of the Invincible society who were arrested, Carey's evidence helped to send six for execution. Carey was then secretly dispatched to South Africa by sea and met O'Donnell "afloat". Then while travelling to Durban from Cape Town on the "Melrose" O'Donnell killed Carey and was sent back to London, tried and sentenced to death.

The Dublin Fusiliers come in for abuse also, and are mentioned in connection with the Boer War "oe'r the sea". The new police force, An Garda Siochana, come under suspicion too because their loyalty to the new "Gaelic" state is questioned when they can't play a nationalist melody. Queen Victoria comes in for the greatest abuse of all in the song when she is described unfavourably and is also grossly insulted in a most crude manner by the Lord Mayor of the city, before bringing her up to Monto

!

There is (was?) a linen hall in Dublin at the end of Bolton Street. I quote "In Lurgan Street, near the western end of Bolton Street, is the Linen Hall, founded when Dublin was the centre of that trade and Belfast had not yet arisen on the commercial horizon. It is now the barracks and recruiting depot of the Dublin Fusiliers, whose ultra-modern khaki jackets seem oddly incongruous amid their ancient surroundings. The arched piazzas, where the merchants made their bargains, and the wide openings in the outer walls on the first and second floors, which were evidently intended for the swinging of heavy bales in and out of storage lofts, still remain as marks of its original purpose. The Linen Hall was built in 1726." Check out www.indigo.ie/~kfinlay/ for anything to do with Dublin history

A fantastic song and excellent story