The real squalor in 'Strumpet City'

Nurse Magrane made 269 visits to TB patients in their homes on the north side of Dublin city in April 1916. During the month, the city's Charles Street tuberculosis dispensary, close to Ormond Quay, was notified of 55 new north-side cases to add to the existing caseload of 567. Her colleague, Nurse McKenna, visited a further 153 TB patients.

On the south side of the city the existing caseload was not so heavy at 537, but 44 new cases were notified in April, and nurses Considine and Murray visited 456 patients in their south city homes. Some 10 TB patients died in April, 10 houses were declared insanitary, and 26 reported for disinfection. Their work was disrupted when the military authorities took possession of the clinic, remaining in occupation until May 1st, when the premises had to be disinfected before reopening for business.

The 1911 census records 62,365 families living in Dublin city. The average number in each family was 4.6, with an average of 8.6 people living in each house. The overall population stood at 304,802. The city was smaller then, effectively contained in the area between the Royal and Grand canals. Many better-off families lived in the suburbs, and do not appear in the city figures.

The housing stock was poor. Almost 50,000 families, or 75 per cent of families, lived in accommodation of less than five rooms. Breaking down that figure reveals a very bleak picture. Some 40 families lived in a shared room. About one-third of family units were slightly better off, having a room of their own. About 20 per cent of families lived in just two rooms.

There were 3,604 tenements in Dublin city in 1911. In them, there were 643 instances in which more than seven people lived in one room, 45 cases where there were 10 to a room, 16 with 11, and five where 12 or more lived in the one room. The squalor described in James Plunkett's novel Strumpet City was real.

A Housing Inquiry in 1914 made efforts to deal with the problem, but little local authority accommodation was provided during the first World War (1914-1918). The situation may have been marginally better in 1916 than that reported by the 1911 census. But it is fair to say that it was little changed from 1913, when Dublin's chief medical officer, Sir Charles Cameron, wrote: "In the case of one room tenements, the occupants are usually very poor and unable to pay for more accommodation . . . the wages of an unskilled labourer are rarely more than £1 per week." Sir Charles noted that a tradesman, a tailor known to him living in Dame Court, could only earn 10 shillings a week, a quarter of which went on rent. His wife had to feed the family out of the balance, which meant they often went hungry.

The position regarding literacy was more encouraging. Almost 250,000 of the population of the city was over nine years of age, and 92.6 per cent of them were able to read and write. The 1911 census was the first to measure literacy in this age group, so no comparison is possible.

However, it did show that the percentage of those of aged five and upwards unable to read and write had been dropping steadily. And just 3.9 per cent of the city's population said they could speak Irish in 1911, up from 3.3 per cent in 1901, but that must surely have risen by 1916, given the renewed interest in Gaelic culture.