IRELAND’S SLUMS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20202, 12 January 1934, Page 7

IRELAND’S SLUMS.

Scenes in a Seaside Resort. PLIGHT OF THE POOR. DUBLIN, December 4. Picture to yourself a lovely seaside resort in an emerald-green setting, villas overflowing with holiday-makers, hotels packed with luxury lovers, streets filled with pretty girls in audacious swimming costumes, and a shelving beach stippled with laughter-lov-ing bathers. Then picture the same town, with streets swept by an Arctic wind, drenched with wintry rain, the beach a forlorn expanse of deserted sand, cobbles and rocks, boats beached and already bleached, a few men in rickety cars gathering streaming kelp, and the town empty save for families in the second-best streets. Fashionable Resort. This is one of the fashionable watering places, twenty miles from Dublin, known as Skerries. Nor is Skerries alone in its dreadful slums in main streets. Maynooth, where the Church trains its priests; Naas, the county seat of Kildare,, and almost every country village in Ireland, can match Skerries. The lot of the working classes with large families demands a patience and a resignation beyond anyone accustomed to the social conditions of the dominions. In Skerries families live in whitewashed terraces with thatched roofs and doors divided, after the manner of stables, and the flooded flagstones stop abruptly at these inlets. There is a woman talking to a neighbour, -with both doors open. Behind her the floor is of tamped earth, made hard by the pattering of many feet. As you look in the front door you simultaneously look out of the back door. “What is the rent?” “ Six shillings a week, and it has to be paid on the nail, though the house is not fit to live in.” “How many rooms?” “Just two; come in and see them.” Each is about eight feet by seven feet, certainly no more. In the one on the right is a fireplace, bhilt up to 3ft 6in, and on the wall are strung some odd cups and saucers, and cracked' plates and badly buckled knives and bent spoons. From the top door to the back stretches a line upon -which is rough and poor children’s clothing, spotlessly clean. No Furniture. In the second room is the skeleton of a bed, the sacking upon it resting on the ground. There is not an article of furniture. “ How many children?” “ I have three little angels in heaven.” The statement is made with touching simplicity and faith. “ There are eight others.” “But yort don’t look forty?” “ No. I’m not. I was married when I was nineteen and I’m just thirty-four. It’s pretty tough. My old man is a bit sore with me because I won’t agree to have any more. But it’s murderous to bring children into the world in these conditions.” “ These houses—save the name—are not fit to house a pig in,” interjected the neighbour with warmth and a sigh. “The thatch leaks, too; look at it now.” There was a thin trickle of rain seeping down in the second room. “ Where do the children sleep?” “ In this first room.” “ Bedclothes?” “No. They just snuggle together, and where there are eight childer crowded in such a small space, there is plenty of warmth, and, if there ain’t, they must go cold. Me and the old man sleep in the second room, on the floor. “ Pigsties.” “ He makes about £2 a w T eek, and in the season I get odd jobs, and that just about keeps us going. Eight growing childer take some feeding. “ What happens when I am out? Oh, I don’t go till I have given them breakfast, and they have to fend for themselves after that until I get home at dark, and make their evening meal. “ We have tried and tried to get a better house, but there are none to be had. There are plenty that would suit, but they are shut up between seasons. The owners want them for the people who will pay large rents for a few months. We have to live in this pigsty.”