It had been a hard-fought struggle between the moderate incumbent faction of Sinn Féin, represented by such figures as Arthur Griffith and Darrell Figgis, and the militant newcomers led by de Valera. Agreement was secured only in the final phase of negotiations the previous night.15 The new constitution committed Sinn Féin to the ‘use of any and every means available to render impotent the power of England to hold Ireland in subjection by military force, or otherwise.’16
A pen portrait of his local cumann in Rathfarnham by a very youthful Todd Andrews provides an insight into the type of ‘Sinn Féin Clubs’ springing up.
The membership included some very old men, usually tradesmen and labourers, as well as women of various ages and conditions of life. There were girls who served in shops or worked in laundries and some secretaries. Other of the women members were housewives with very strong feelings on the subject of women’s rights. Although they never had any clear notion of what these rights should be they had a feeling that something was wrong with the status of women in the community. This was a sufficient grievance on which to hang many a debate.
As for the male membership, they
were astonishingly conservative … It might be expected that men who were prepared to support a rebellion against the political status quo would have shown some liberality of view but … social questions such as housing, land division, public health, education were seldom discussed.
Instead subjects for debate revolved around ‘England’s difficulty, Ireland’s opportunity.’17
Much to his disgust, Andrews was relegated to stewarding the crowds outside the convention, but he would not have been surprised at the debate, which resembled a meeting of his own cumann writ large. Reflecting the innate conservatism of many members, some delegates, including a number of priests, expressed more concern about how a republic should be achieved than about the substance of the proposed new state. They wanted the constitution amended to ensure that Sinn Féin would adopt only‘legitimate’ methods in pursuit of its goals. One of the movers of this amendment, Father O’Meehan, let the cat out of the bag when he said he would have used the word ‘constitutional’ in his amendment but it had acquired a ‘bad flavour.’ On the other hand, Father Gayner from Ennis, in de Valera’s new constituency, urged the delegates to set up a provisional government and declare themselves a constituent assembly.18
In keeping with Andrews’s analysis of his local cumann, the only delegates to cause disharmony at the convention were women. They were Constance Markievicz, Helena Molony and Kathleen Clarke, all of whom attacked Eoin MacNeill for his role in attempting to abort the rising. Less controversial was their demand that Sinn Féin make votes for women part of its policy in the coming general election. All three were members of Cumann na dTeachtairí, which had been established by leading female activists within Sinn Féin to secure greater equality and representation for women within the organisation. MacNeill was staunchly defended by de Valera, but the conference did agree to support votes for women. A proposal from Markievicz urging craft workers to leave British unions and form Irish ones, a project she would help bring to fruition three years later, was also adopted.19
Members of the Irish Volunteers, such as Todd Andrews, were important facilitators of Sinn Féin’s growth but did not take it very seriously. They certainly did not accept the primacy of politics in achieving a republic: they saw politics and politicians as totally discredited. Less than a month later, in Croke Park, they held a convention at which de Valera was elected president of the Volunteers. He now led both the political and the paramilitary wings of the movement. The only man who might have challenged him, the late commandant of the Fingal Battalion, victor of Ashbourne and former president of the IRB, Thomas Ashe, was now a national icon.
High political drama soon gave way to the perennial concerns of Dubliners over the basics of life. If little could be done to control food prices, there was some short-lived optimism that the price of coal might be reduced and renewed efforts to tackle slum clearance. Largely because of pressure from the trades council, the corporation undertook to examine alternatives to the near-monopoly enjoyed by the Scottish coal suppliers McKelvie and Company, whose fuel was regarded as too expensive and of poor quality. The first attempt was made by a deputation to Scotland consisting of P. T. Daly, James J. Kelly, a nationalist councillor and manufacturer, Mark Ruddle, the city’s electrical engineer, and the old IRB hand Fred Allan, secretary to the corporation.
However, they discovered that cutting the city adrift from McKelvie and Company might leave them in a worse and colder place. Belfast and several British cities had found to their cost that it was much easier to ditch a supplier than to find another on better terms. While the corporation stayed with the Scottish supplier, it was protected by the Price of Coal (Limitation) Act (1915), which would set the price from time to time until six months after the war ended.
However, the committee did come back with two proposals. One was to adapt the furnaces used by the power station to take more varied types and sizes of coal; the other was to consider the purchase of its own steamer. A suitable vessel would cost £20,000, while shipping charges on the 35,000 tons of coal required by the city already amounted to £21,000 a year. Daly argued that the investment would more than pay for itself and would provide security of supply. But it was a step too far for his fellow-councillors, some of whom feared that one German torpedo could scuttle the whole project.20 Their fears were not unfounded: Tedcastle’s, a large commercial coal importer, lost the Adela off Holyhead on 27 December 1917.21
Councillor W. T. Cosgrave tried a different tack: he explored the possibility of exploiting Irish coal. There were two possible sources, Arigna (Co. Roscommon) and Castlecomer (Co. Kilkenny). The latter was preferable because of the better-quality coal, but distance from the market, an inadequate railway network that would require laying extra track and a bridge across the Barrow to make it accessible, as well as the high cost of motor fuel for lorries to supplement railway deliveries, made the option as unrealistic as Daly’s scheme.22
By contrast, a corporation report on the city’s pressing need for housing contained the seeds for future development and provided up-to-date information on how the war was affecting families in the tenements of the north inner city. It followed, and to some extent grew out of, a more ambitious scheme promoted by Archbishop Walsh and the MP for the St Stephen’s Green division, P. J. Brady, to raise funds in the United States for slum clearance. Despite support from the chamber of commerce, the idea of applying to the American investment market for funds frightened most members of the corporation, who felt that ultimate responsibility for the problem lay with Dublin Castle and with London.
The new report produced by the Housing Committee under the former internee Tom Kelly proposed slum clearance on a more modest scale, renovating the better class of tenements rather than demolishing them. It provided a graphic history of the rapid decline of fine residential housing into slums since 1850. For instance, Buckingham Street, where one house had been let out in tenements that year, had four more houses converted to tenements by 1875 and fifteen by 1900; the number had risen to seventeen by the time the report was compiled. Another thoroughfare, Dominick Street, had one tenement in 1850, but 75 of the 145 houses had been let out in tenements by 1917. The number of houses let out in tenements in Gardiner Street (Upper, Middle and Lower) was also seventy-five. In Dorset Street ninety houses (including the birthplace of the dramatist Richard Brinsley Sheridan) had been let as tenements. Another thoroughfare, Gloucester Street, had eighty-one tenements by 1917.
The report identified areas where new housing could be built. These included the grounds of the Richmond Asylum at Grangegorman to the north-west of the city centre, open spaces in Glasnevin, Drumcondra, Clonturk and Cabra to the north, and Killester, Marino and Clontarf to the north-east.
In selecting tenements for renovation the Housing Committee proposed using the existing criteria and selecting first-clas
s housing, which was structurally sound. It proposed that 2,192 of the 3,791 families living in the district’s 627 first-class houses could remain once the properties had been improved; the rest would be provided with new homes in areas identified for rebuilding. It would cost £3,074 per acre to acquire the slums, because of the generous compensation terms for landlords, who were entitled to ten years’ rent when a house was purchased compulsorily. The compensation system actually encouraged them to neglect their properties, as it added to the pressure on the corporation to demolish tenements unfit for human habitation or in a dangerous condition.
During eviction proceedings in November 1917 in the Crabbe Lane and Boyne Street area, between Great Brunswick Street (Pearse Street) and Denzille Street (Fenian Street), the solicitor for the Dublin Tenants’ Association, James Brady, argued that the landlords of derelict slum properties should have their properties confiscated rather than bought. He added that ‘the military should have blown them down instead of perfectly good buildings in the city centre.’23
The cost of acquiring the slum dwellings in the eighty acres encompassed by the survey under the existing compensation scheme was £254,920. Turning to the cost of rehousing the displaced slum-dwellers, the report estimated that
the average cost of a self-contained dwelling of sufficient size to prevent overcrowding, and which admits of the separation of the sexes, and which would provide living accommodation with a scullery and w.c. [toilets] for the sole use of each family, is £380 based on the most recent competitive prices.
However, the cost of land clearance, sewerage, road construction and other charges would bring the total cost to £553 per dwelling, and it would cost £1.1 million to provide the two thousand houses needed for the first phase of the plan. It would cost more than £5 million to house the eight thousand families living in the area, compared with £3 million before the war to house all the city’s slum-dwellers.
A considerable amount of thought went into the sites to be chosen for the new developments. It was considered important to ensure that people were housed as near as possible to their place of employment. ‘The more remote sites [should be] reserved for the better paid class of artisan who could afford the expenses of transit.’ The DUTC would be required to extend its tram services to the new areas and to introduce cheaper fares for the corporation tenants ‘during the time when they are going to and from their work.’
The project was no more than a pipe dream without adequate government funding. The only part of the scheme remotely feasible from within the corporation’s own resources was the renovation of the tenements, which could be carried out for an estimated £150 each, or less than a third of the amount required to build and service a new house.
In a further setback, Alderman Kelly’s colleague W. T. Cosgrave, the new Sinn Féin MP for Kilkenny City, published a minority report that dissented strongly from the proposal to renovate existing dwellings. He questioned the accuracy of the estimate of £150 per flat and pointed out that many of the houses classified as first class and second class in 1914 had deteriorated considerably since. He estimated the life of the renovated buildings at no more than twenty years and predicted that the social problems associated with tenement living would continue to fester. His objections to perpetuating tenement life in renovated buildings included the continuing absence of privacy, the lack of open-air amenities for children living in the upper storeys, the difficulty of keeping common areas clean and secure and the question of problem tenants imposing on their neighbours. Other problems included the noise and disruption caused by tenants who worked irregular hours, and the generally cramped conditions.24
The survey accompanying the report provides an insight into tenement life in the inner city towards the end of the First World War. The great majority of tenants lived in one room. A total of 5,506 lettings were for one room, compared with 2,087 for two rooms and 909 for three or more rooms. 1,068 of the one-room tenements had one occupant, and 1,572 of them had two. A further 1,141 had three occupants, and the remainder were occupied by between four and nine people each. Only 136 of the two-room tenements had one occupant and 34 of the tenements of three rooms or more.
The 5,506 one-room tenements accommodated 15,930 people, an average of slightly less than three people each. Rents were between 6d and 5s 6d a week. There were 8,361 people living in the two-room tenements, an average of a little over four people each. Rents ranged from 1s to 10s a week. There were 4,348 people living in the flats with three or more rooms, an average of slightly less than five people each. Rents for these larger tenements ranged from 5s to 15s a week.
The lowest rents were usually paid by tenants in the worst-kept rooms or who undertook various duties for the landlord, such as letting out other rooms, cleaning the common areas or carrying out repairs. The higher rents for the larger lettings often included a shop or business premises.
No fewer than 1,599 lettings, accommodating 8,503 families, were in premises classified as unfit for human habitation.
The relatively low rents reflect the low income of most tenement-dwellers. The average wage of 324 ‘heads of families’ in ‘first-class’ tenements was only 10s a week, although the rents ranged from 1s to 4s 8d. This means that other family members must have contributed to the weekly budget, a pattern replicated in all categories of dwelling, as can be seen from the figures below.
A further 466 heads of families earned between 10s 6d and 19s 6d, with 324 earning 20s a week. This was the basic pay for many manual workers in the city. For most of these families the weekly rent on a two or three-room tenement would have absorbed most of the main breadwinner’s income.
A further 398 heads of families earned between 20s 6d and 24s 6d a week, and 250 earned 25s. Another 236 earned between 25s 6d and 29s 6d, and 139 earned 30s. The remainder of the first-class tenements were occupied by 207 families, whose principal breadwinners earned between 30s 6d and 39s a week.
As might be expected, no fewer than 595 families occupying second and third-class tenements were headed by breadwinners earning no more than 10s a week. These tenants paid rents as low as 6d for one room. A further 459 heads of families earned between 10s 6d and 14s 6d, while 192 earned 15s a week. They paid rents ranging from 1s to 6s 6d.
516 heads of families earned between 15s 6d and 19s 6d, with 549 earning 20s a week. Another 754 earned between 20s 6d and 24s 6d, with 408 earning 25s a week. They paid rents ranging from 1s 6d to 6s for a single room and up to 13s 6d for three or more rooms.
587 heads of families earned between 25s 6d and 29s 6d, with 256 earning 30s a week. The rents they paid ranged from as little as 1s 6d for a single room to 12s 6d for three or more rooms. A total of 326 heads of families living in second and third-class accommodation earned between 30s 6d and 37s 6d, although there were only sixteen earning more than 36s a week.
There was no strong correlation between income and the amount of rent paid. In many instances rents were high compared with the earnings of the head of the family, which suggests not alone that spouses, children or lodgers must have contributed but also the existence of a significant black economy.
The range of occupations in the tenements is immensely varied. The lists include an actor, a fisherman, a photographer, a signwriter, a cinema operator, a pig jobber, a tree-feller, a jockey, two policemen, two donkeymen and two sculptors.25 But by far the largest group was that of the 3,476 labourers. Their earnings ranged from 7s to 60s a week, suggesting that this occupational heading covered anyone from part-time night watchmen capable only of light work to dockers and employees in relatively secure unionised employments, such as Dublin Corporation and the Port and Docks Board.
The next-largest occupational group comprised charwomen, of whom there were 603. Their income ranged from 2s 8d to 36s a week. The upper figure is surprisingly high and suggests that many charwomen were far better off than domestic servants, who could expect to be paid only between £10 and £20 a year, depending on their duties and the prosperity of t
heir employer. However, servants living in also received free board and lodging, worth between 5s and £1 a week. The same applied to female drapers’ assistants who lived on the employer’s premises and could expect to earn between £10 and £25 a year, while female factory workers could expect to earn as little as 4s a week. Even Jacob’s biscuit factory, the premier employer of women factory workers before the munitions industry arrived, paid only between 6s and 10s a week, with forewomen earning 16s 10d.26
Among the best-paid, predominantly female occupations in the tenements was that of dealer. Despite their ‘Molly Malone’ image, these women earned between 10s and 60s a week. There would also have been some men among the 179 dealers listed for the north inner city.
Other large occupational groups included 262 carters earning between 10s and 40s a week, 180 clerks earning between 10s 6d and 60s and 159 carpenters earning between 15s and 50s. There were 79 factory hands listed (a term that suggests they were all men), earning between 7s 6d and 30s a week. By contrast, 184 munitions workers (the vast majority women) were earning between 10s and 60s a week. However, the average earnings for female munitions workers was only 33s a week: far more than many male manual workers but well below what male munitions workers earned.27
Craft workers were well represented in the north city tenements, as table 8 shows. The wide discrepancy in pay among some trades, such as printers, is probably explained by the fact that it includes apprentices and, in the case of the printing trade, those employed in small jobbing houses as well as bigger employers, such as the newspapers. In other trades, such as building, the divergence in rates probably reflects differences in seasonal work and permanent versus temporary employees. The rates suggest that wage inflation had yet to take a grip on the Dublin trades.
A City in Wartime Page 31
