New housing scheme for Dublin’s poor

Pembroke, 14 September 1916 - A new housing scheme in the Dublin suburb of Pembroke was opened today. The scheme cost £125,000 and will provide accommodation for 579 working-class families.

Chief Secretary Duke spoke at the opening ceremony - his first time addressing an Irish audience in Ireland. He stated that the housing crisis afflicting Dublin’s poor was an immense one. The challenge, he said, was as ‘tremendous’ in magnitude as ‘any problem which in modern times could engage the attention of statesmen in connection with the wellbeing of this country or the Empire’.

It is estimated that the cost of rehousing the 31,000 families who live in one-roomed conditions in Dublin would be £3.5m. There has been widespread praise for Mr Duke’s apparently earnest determination to seek a solution to the crisis.

[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]