Social housing / local authority housing in Athy

The General Election has been contested on a number of issues and the one issue which had never previously received much national attention was that of social housing.  Of course that issue has come to the fore because of the plight of the homeless and the growing number of families, almost invariably young couples or single parents with young children forced to live in one roomed hotel accommodation.  The problem is one which will grow over the next few years as the banks and the building societies take legal action to get possession of family homes where mortgages are in arrears.  Our only hope is that the long heralded recovery reaches provincial Ireland and/or the financial institutions adopt a more socially responsible attitude to the problems facing families who were badly hit during the recession. 

When we had Town Councils in Athy the provision of local authority housing was their main contribution to the development of the town.  Of course the provision and maintenance of the town’s infrastructural facilities such as roads, water and sewerage schemes were also important, but the provision of housing was generally regarded by Councillors as the Council’s key contribution to the local community.

Interestingly it was the Labouring Classes Lodging Housing Act of 1851 which first empowered Town Councils, in Athy’s case the Town Commissioners, to build houses for workers.  It was a role which the Town Commissioners never took up, despite the fact that Town Commissioners continued in charge of the town’s affairs until 1899.  Private individuals met the housing needs of what those of us writing of the 19^th century refer to as the ‘poorer classes’.  The small terraced houses built in laneways and alleyways in the town reveal to us in the names of those now lost laneways the landlord/owner in each case. 

Kirwan’s Lane, Kelly’s Lane, Butler’s Row, Barker’s Row, Matthew’s Lane, Higginson’s Lane and Connolly’s Lane are just some of those rows of terraced houses which were part of the town’s built landscape up to the 1930s.  The failure of Athy Town Commissioners to build any houses for the labouring classes under the 1851 Act was presumably because the landlord class represented on the Town Commissioners did not want interference with the private housing market.  Another reason was awareness by private landlords who were generally business people in the town that the provision of any local authority houses had to be financed from local rates which they were obliged to pay.

The role of local authorities in the provision of housing was reaffirmed in the Housing of the Labouring Classes Act of 1890.  Again the financing of any Council housing development had to rely on rates imposed on businesses in the town.  The Town Commission was replaced by the Urban District Council in 1900, but the public representatives by and large remained the same.  Eight years after the Urban Council was established a central housing fund was set up by the Local Government Department to assist Councils in providing housing for those in need. 

The local medical officer, Dr. James Kilbride, was a critic of the Urban District Council’s failure to meet the basic needs of Athy’s ‘poorer classes’ for water supply and housing.  The water from the public pumps in the town was frequently contaminated by sewerage and caused several deaths, but still the Urban District Council refused to burden the ratepayers with the cost of providing a piped water scheme for the town.  The Council’s refusal to act even in the face of several deaths resulted in the Local Government Board insisting that the Urban District Council ‘procure a supply of pure water for the town of Athy.’  Work on the town’s water supply scheme eventually started on 27^th April 1907 and was completed in June of the following year. 

Dr. Kilbride then turned his attention to the unsanitary housing conditions to be found in the laneways and alleyways of the town and it was his efforts which led to the first local authority scheme in the town which was completed in 1913 just a year before the outbreak of World War I with houses built in Meeting Lane, St. Michael’s Terrace and St. Martin’s Terrace.  Although built under the Housing of the Working Classes Act Athy Urban District Council decided that the houses in St. Michael’s Terrace and St. Martin’s Terrace were ‘better class houses’, while ‘labourer’s houses’ were provided in Meeting Lane.  The Town Clerk would report after tenants had been appointed that the Council houses ‘were all occupied principally by artisans.  None of the tenants belonged to the labouring classes.’ 

The poor people living in the unsanitary conditions highlighted in Dr. Kilbride’s reports to the Urban District Council would have to await the Slum Clearance Programmes of the early 1930s before they could be re-housed out of the unhealthy slums rented out by private landlords.

Local Authority Housing in Athy

I had intended this week to write of a young man from our town who was recently ordained to the Priesthood but the time and opportunity to do so has eluded me but I will return to this story in the near future. Instead I will pass onto other mundane matters in the not so recent past. In particular Dr. Kilbride who on the 3rd November 1906 reported to the Urban District Council on the sanitary condition of the “houses of the working classes” in Athy. He was now about to embark on his second social campaign to improve the lot of the people living in Athy. In his report he stated:

The floors in many houses are lower than the laneway in front and the fall of the yard is to the back door, consequently the floors are wet and sodden in rainy weather and frequently are flooded. In the yards are found underground drains choked in most cases and quite ineffective. In less than a dozen cases was there found any sanitary accommodation … in some rooms the only light admitted is through a few (sometimes only one) small pane of glass found in the wall, sufficient light or air cannot find entrance to these rooms … there are many houses in more than one lane that if the poor people had other houses to go to should be closed as unfit for human habitation in their present condition… there is no main sewer in the west end of the town beyond Keating’s Lane… the Order of the Council with regard to the removal of manure heaps is not in force. In some yards there were accumulations for the greater part of the year.

Having started on the Water Supply Scheme for Athy just one month previously, the Urban Councillors probably felt justified in leaving Dr. Kilbride’s report aside without taking any further action. Instead, the Council renewed its efforts to persuade the Inspector General of the R.I.C. to have the local police barracks restored to the centre of the town, as it was felt that the old military barracks at Barrack Lane, to which the R.I.C. were relocated, was too far away. Their efforts were in vain and the local police were to continue to occupy the military barracks until the end of the British rule in Ireland.

Dr. Kilbride’s concern for the public health of the townspeople was supported by Lady Weldon of Kilmoroney who was instrumental in the formation of an Athy Branch of the Women’s Health Association in November 1907. A Tuberculosis Committee was also formed and a series of health lectures organised for the Town Hall. In December 1907, a Tuberculosis Exhibition was held in the same hall at which members of the Tuberculosis Committee were on hand to explain the various exhibits to the general public who were summoned to attend by the local Bellman. On 24th July, 1908, Lady Aberdeen, the Viceroy’s wife, visited the town to formally launch the newly-established Womans National Health Association for Athy. The Leinster Street Band met her at the railway station and paraded to the Town Hall where Lady Aberdeen was presented with an address of welcome.

By 1909 the Urban Council was in a position to address the need for housing in the town and appointed a committee to recommend an appropriate scheme under the Housing of the Working Classes Act. This committee when it met on the 26th February split into two groups to select suitable sites for housing in the east urban and the west urban of Athy. Within a month sites had been selected and the Council agreed to build three different classes of houses to be let at rents ranging from 2/= to 3/6 per week. The selected sites were at Matthew’s Lane (off Leinster Street), Meeting Lane and Woodstock Street. Public advertisements for plans for suitable houses for Athy elicited ten submissions and James F. Reade, already well known in Athy as the architect of the Water Supply Scheme, won the five guineas prize for the best design.

Within twelve months the Councillors were re-thinking the original house plans and decided to build “eleven better class houses” on the Matthew’s Lane site, five, “better class houses” at Woodstock Street and five “labourers houses” at Meeting Lane. A public enquiry was held in the Town Hall on 15th February, 1911 under the auspices of J. F. MacCabe, a Local Government Inspector to consider the Council’s proposed compulsory acquisition of lands for housing in Athy. Following that enquiry, an advertisement was placed in the local newspapers inviting tenders for the construction of twenty one Council houses - ten at Matthew’s Lane, five at Meeting Lane and six at Kelly’s field off Woodstock Street. The successful tender was received from H.A. Hamilton of Thomas St., Waterford, but when it was not acted upon after the lapse of ten months Mr. Hamilton withdrew. The Council re-advertised on 26th June, 1912, but not before Michael Malone, Secretary of Athy’s Town Tenants League had written to the Town Council protesting against “its inactivity in relation to house building”. Within a month Dr. James Kilbride had resigned as medical officer on health grounds.

It would be remiss of me not to bring to your attention the Ernest Shackleton Autumn School which is to take place in the Town Hall, Athy over next weekend. The Shackleton story of Antarctic Exploration between 1901 and 1922 is known to most people and especially those who live in the Kilkea area where he was born 125 years ago. The Shackleton Autumn School is organised by the local Heritage Company to celebrate the achievements of a man who lived his early life within a few miles of Athy. The lecturers for the weekend Seminar are of an extremely high calibre and include Jonathan Shackleton a direct descendent of the Explorer, Dr. Robert Headland of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, Frank Nugent who was part of the team which re-enacted in 1997 the heroic voyage of the James Caird and Michael Smith the recent biographer of Tom Crean. I would urge everyone with an interest in the subject to come to all or some of the Lectures over the weekend.

As part of the weekend festivities, there will be a Concert in the Dominican Hall on Saturday, 27th October at 9.00 p.m. Liam O’Flynn and the Pipers Call Band will provide the musical entertainment and tickets can be obtained from the Heritage Centre or at the door on the night. However, early booking is advisable as this is the first Concert to be given by Liam O’Flynn in Athy and promises to be a sell out. Also entertaining those attending the Earnest Shackleton Summer School on Friday night will be Brian Hughes whose CD, “Whistle Stop” which issued some time ago by Gael Linn was a huge success. He is joining forces with Michael Delaney who will be singing some of the old forgotten ballads of Kilkea and South Kildare area which he has collected over the years.

See you there.