Henrietta Street

HugsPhotographic 2015

A five minute walk from the bustle of Dublin's O'Connell Street, Henrietta Street is well worth the visit. Short, cobbled and just North of the Liffey, here it is so easy to visualise more than 300 years of history. Now a zoned conservation area, each house listed on the 'Record of Protected Structures'.

Henrietta street is a cul-de-sac. On my recent visit, I noticed many sharp-suited men and women, carrying what was likely their lunchtime 'coffee to go', through the Street, and off toward the Kings Inns, or Temple Park. In days gone by, the street would have been full of women with big coach prams, and children playing in this wider than average and, of course, traffic free space. I've read of the happy long hot summer days spent in Temple Park, by the residents of the tenements who described the park as their playground.

Henrietta Street has been saved by many people, the Georgian enthusiasts, the Heritage Council, and Dublin Council. There were many tenement dwellings in Dublin, also known as the 'Dublin Slums'. Much has been written on the subject, in that some places were worse than others, and the truer picture of these hard times could be found a few steps away, in Henrietta Lane. For now I'd lke to stay for the most part, with Henrietta Street, but the chances are I will look at others in the future, there are plenty, and Ireland, as a whole, has such a fascinating history.

Ireland has long earned it's stripes in the film and television industry, and these double fronted, four storey structures of Georgian architecture, are popular with producers. The red brick facades, and sash windows, are still a delight today, though many still in need of some tender loving care. The window and door conservation program in 2009 took care of structural issues with number 14. In 2011 the oak frames of the 18th century windows were also repaired, and 31 windows reinstated along with the front door.

The original development of Henrietta Street did not include cobbles. These were added years later by Dublin Corporation, partly in a bid to preserve the site. The street is build over the basements of the houses, and the cobbles, laid on a concrete base, brought their own problems, one of weight. Some of the cellars began to collapse, and action was needed structurally am guessing to stop the street disappearing into itself! If the houses are to be used for the public, there is also a need for sound structures to make the area safe and insurable.

No one can argue that the cobbles add character, and as a photographer, it is somewhere you definitely don't want to miss on a trip to Dublin. The original Henrietta street was much longer than the cobbles we see today, but part was demolished, inlcuding half of number 15, to incorporate a right of way. Henrietta Street begins at the King's Inn Pub, once upon a time known as 'Paddy O'Reilly's' and a regular watering hole for the locals.

Fans of Foyles War, Strumpet City, or the 2011 film, Albert Nobbs, may recognise some of the backdrops. Titanic: Blood and Steel, was also filmed here in 2011, but for me, the most impressionable production to date is the TV3 Series 'The Tenements' presented by Bryan Murray.

The TV3 airing of this production by 'Big Mountain' was like a magnet for me. The street, with its panelled front doors, rectangular windows, and decorative mouldings. A street, once inhabited by the elite, now remembered more for the incredible families who survived there in the toughest of times.

At the start of 1801, the North side of Dublin slid into squalor. The economy took a dive with the disappearance of Irelands Parliament, and the grand mansions, having had some prestigious tenants, eventually fell into the hands of the unscrupulous. Those who stripped a lot of the rich features to make money, and then crammed large families into tiny spaces to make even more money. The solicitors, bishops and architects migrated to the Southside of Dublin, which continued to flourish.

The 1901 census records 17 families, amounting to well over 100 people, living at number 14 Henrietta Street. This was the first tenement on the street, and remained so until the 1970's. These huge dwellings were divided into lots of smaller rooms. There was no electricity, running water, or indoor toilets,and it wasn't uncommon for people to stay in bed some days just to keep warm.

The average income was just a pound, rent averaged 3 shillings a week, and work wasn't easy to find. Long before the birth of the internet, the men would have to walk the streets to find work. There were no interviews, it was a case of knocking on doors or stand in line at the docks, and hope you would be picked for a few hours work to put food on the table for the family. There was, of course, the option to bribe the hiring manager with a few drinks the eve before job seeking. An entertaining way perhaps, and a break from the family dwelling, but none the less counter productive.

Some tenement dwellers did manage to get decent employment, there were postmen, carpenters, and iron workers. but there was no such thing as a secure job, no contracts for textile, print, construction or engineering. Nearby Mountjoy Prison was also full of those who took other measures to survive, women who turned to prostitution, and men jailed for drunkeness.

In tenement days children were no different to now, in that they liked to try and make some money to fund their own entertainment. Though, they had to do far more than 'behave yourself today' to earn any coins.

A Wordpress blog written by a gentleman called Peter Branningan brought a smile whilst highlighting that sometimes there was no gain where there was no pain, it is worth a few minutes of your time to read.

The story behind The Tenements, is a huge reminder of how far we have come, but also how far we have still to go. Whilst a job search can now be conducted from the warmth and comfort of home, it's more a question of whether you have a home. The housing crisis has changed on the outside but the roots remain as strong as ever. In 2015 Dublin still faces severe housing issues with a shortage of affordable homes. Of course Dublin isn't the only part of Ireland with this issue, but it currenty appears to be the hardest hit.

By 1911 more than a thousand people lived on Henrietta street. What did surprise me, was to hear that not only did families live in one room with extended families, but some took in lodgers too! I now understand why Annie Winston, one of the original residents of number 14 Henrietta Street, said in the TV3 series that 'them times were great. People were kind to one another'. She struck me as such a warm and upbeat little lady for one who lived an amazingly hard life.

What I have learned through my research, is that many people agree with Annie. Henrietta Street has been described as a great place with great people. A place where there was no need to lock your doors, and everyone felt safe.

A far cry from Dublin City now, where day to day many people live lonely anonymous lives, and eye contact with the person in the street is minimal if it is there at all.

Employment

These were times when women had never heard of the corporate ladder, and those who did find work, no matter what it was, were never classed as skilled or paid the same rate as the men.

This wasn't just a Dublin thing but a whole other story, one very well highlighted in the British made film, 'Made in Dagenham'. The film is described on the IMBD web site as

'A dramatization of the 1968 strike at the Ford Dagenham car plant, where female workers walked out in protest against

sexual discrimination.'

The biggest employers of the time, in Dublin, were Guinness, and the Jacobs Cracker Factory, both still popular as a brand as much as a choice of employer, more commonly known as Diago (Guinness) and Valeo Foods (Jacobs).

The import and export business for Dublin has always done very well, and the docks provided another large source of employment for the lucky ones plucked from the queues of willing labour each morning.

The grandest house on Henrietta street was number 9, with its elegant round headed windows. Next door at Number 10 Henrietta was once a laundry. The laundry was run by The Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul. The employees were all single women, 50 in total. In the absence of automatic washing machines and steam irons, the work would have been exhausting but the women were at least able to provide. The Society of St Vincent de Paul remains, to this day, a life saver for many who are unable to put food on the family table.

Women would often pawn the mens suits and shoes as a means of getting through the week, I guess the pawnbroker was as busy as today's 'Cash Converters' but the goods exchanged are quite different.

The picture below shows a row of prams, lined up outside a pawnbrokers, babies included. Once upon a time it was safe and acceptable to leave your child in the street, but also necessary, there was no way those big coach prams were all going to fit into any of the shops! The children would often gather bundles of sticks or nests of coal to sell, while the women sold fruit and veg, or fish, these women were known as dealers.

The children of these times didn't have it easy, many missed out on their education, having to leave school at an early age, sometimes 12 or 13, to help boost the family income by selling wares on the streets. Skipping school was illegal, and they faced the prospect of being sent away to some dreadful places as a consequence, rock and a hard place just doesn't even begin to describe their plight. In the 1930s, children who stayed away from school were summoned by the school inspector to the courts in Morgan Place next to the Four Courts Dublin were they could receive up to seven years in an Industrial School. For some children this was like going from the fat to the fire, as another reason for skipping school would be to also skip the beatings that went with it, but the industrial schools also turned out to be brutal.

Tenement dwellers often lived very short lives. Disease was rife, homes described as 'fever nests', and if tuberculosis didn't kill them, there was always cholera, typhoid, influenza, and poorly maintained houses, which collapsed around people's heads and saw some into early graves. The collapse of the Church Street Tenements is well documented. From the so called 'Second City of the Empire' in the 1800s to the overcrowded inner city poverty of the 1900s, Henrietta Street has seen it all.

Child mortality in the early-twentieth century

Having healthy children who would survive to adulthood was not taken as the norm, as we do now. Statistics tabulated by the Registrar-General in 1911 show that one-fifth of the total 72,475 deaths in 1911 were children under 5; of these, 945 were caused by ‘convulsions’ and 1,370 by bronchitis. Scarlet fever claimed the lives of 260 children under fifteen; 460 under-fifteens died from measles, and 819 under tens from whooping cough.

Source: History of Medicine in Ireland

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