2 - Municipal Social Housing in Ireland, 1866–1914

Summary

Introduction

This chapter examines the impact of social housing in a number of Irish cities and towns from 1866 to 1914. It starts with a brief overview of housing conditions in urban Ireland, examines the legislative code governing Irish social housing, outlines the quantities built and discusses the impact on their respective towns. An attempt will be made to examine the possible reasons for the differences in output between various comparable municipal authorities. The overall impact of the first half-century of Irish social housing will be assessed, in particular the manner in which it disproportionately benefited the more affluent sections of lower-income groups. Finally, this study uses a sample group of 11 municipal councils: Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Galway, Drogheda, Kilkenny, Kingstown, Pembroke, Blackrock and Rathmines-Rathgar.

Social housing has been defined by Anne Power as:

Housing that is not provided for profit and is often let at below market rents; it is allocated to lower-income groups, or to those whose income would not allow them to buy a home independently; the way it is produced – in quality and quantity – is laid down and regulated by the State. The social landlords themselves are also regulated in the way they provide housing. Social landlords can include local authorities, housing associations, co-operatives, limited dividend companies and private landlords.

Chester McGuire has outlined four stages of housing development: intervention, provision, quality and withdrawal. In the first stage, severe housing shortage forces the state to intervene, generally by drawing up building regulations or facilitating private philanthropic bodies to provide housing. The second stage occurs when the state itself, at a national or local level, begins to provide social housing. In the third stage, the emphasis in state provision shifts from the quantity of units provided to their quality. The final stage arises when the majority of the population is well housed and the state scales back its involvement. This chapter examines Irish social housing during the first and part of the second of McGuire's stages.

In 1996, the publication of John Bull's other homes by Murray Fraser established for the first time that the roots of Irish social housing lay firmly in the nineteenth century and, more significantly, that Ireland's system was one of the earliest and proportionately the largest such programme in the world.