Dublin Poverty - Mount Pleasant Buildings (Part 1 of 2) 

the 2nd last lady is MY MOTHER IAM PROUD TO SAY IT A LADY TO BE PROUD OF

My Father was from Dublin. My Mom from Tipperary. They didn't have such harsh times but were nevertheless proud working class. I so hope that these wonderful people gained a decent environment in which to live and rear their family. ❤❤❤

i remember playing there as a kid a real hole but the people were ok we use to have battles with the local kids, all great fun. we tend to forget how poor Ireland was but it was a lot better than today a lot less serious crime we had respect for the old. Dublin is a real crime city today at least it was safe to walk around at that time

During the 1950s and '60s huge amounts of money were collected weekly for the African missions in all parts of Irelandwhile poverty was widespread throughout the Irish state.

i must seem out of place to say this, but my family used to live in the buildings (no 149) in the 60's and 70's, and my gran must have been lucky as she had 2 bedrooms and a toilet. maybe im looking thru rose coloured glasses, but i have nothing but happy memories whilst there!! we lived below "mrs dunn" who had 2 sons, one was a musician and the other went onto write scripts for rte!!

The thing is Dublin was the most prosperous part of Ireland during this time, if you'd had a camera crew going to Donegal, Kerry, Mayo during during this time period you would have seen far worst poverty. A lot of people in Ireland in the 60s didnt even have electricity yet

Even though they may not have had much material things, I bet there was plenty of love in their homes. I hope all worked out good for them all. Thanks, John, Indiana.

This is why I stopped having children after one. It was too hard keeping just one fed and clothed.

Powerful stuff. I'm a Dub too and seen such tough times in the '60s.

Heartbreaking 💔 my mom and dad were from Dublin, she followed him to Canada to get married in 63 and had 6 kids! Can’t imagine that was only 50 years

That was such a tough life for those women. No one should have had to live in those conditions.

You are a real grumpy. I have respect for these people. Work was a big issue for these people. I was born in Dublin and I was lucky. We saw poverty that''s what makes the Irish have beautiful hearts!

I remember bare-footed children begging on O'Connell Bridge back in the sixties.

i lived in mount pleasent it was the best the laugh everyone used to have with each other everyone looked out for each other

I lived in this place from 1966 to 1978, it was mad, crime was huge in the 1970's

This is so fascinating and sad at the same time.. Some of you below, say that these people had so many children as there was no birth control allowed or available. I dont want to be judgemental but the question about so many children in these circumstances still pops into my mind. I am from eastern europe, where in this era we were terribly poor, also very catholic coutry and most families had no more than 3-4 children (and these were considered big families). Birth control was unheard off, at least among the lower classes, yet ppl managed to control their births through natural ways. I still remember my grandma talking about the times when she would push my grandad off her if he wanted 'some loving'. She was to exhausted from the hardships and the 3 kids she already had. So from what i remember listening to the older generation, the hardships, tiredness, lack of intimacy was the contraception for the era. I would like to know why was this so different in Ireland. I am trying to imagine myself, being stressed, exhausted, probably hungry, surrounded by my kids, or parents or siblings, there is no way i would be in a mood for sex. what my gradma was saying made perfect sense.. Its so strange that ppl thought and behaved so differently despite such similar circumstances..

One problem was the church being dead set against birth control.

God Bless the poor people

On one of these parts it showed a mother who had 20 children sitting outside watching them play. It was the only pleasure she got by smoking. I know I would too if I had all those children to take care of. Nowadays we are pretty fortunate to have the things we need but it comes with a price. Disobedient kids, no manners, etc. They want everything handed to them yet doing nothing to earn what they received. I am sure these children appreciated everything they had.

the over riding lesson to be learnt from this video is that lack of condoms only condemned these people to perpetual poverty...

Some of the best people came from the buildings . I was born there in 1968 one of four and Mam Dad , good hoenst people . My Ma was from Tipp and my Da was from the cottages at the back of the buildings . Dead and gone now. I loved those days

Theres a book called Dublin tenement life an oral history, that is mind blowing..

Terrible how people were living ,there should have been more support

God Bless them....I was a kid in the fifties it wasnt easy.....but as a kid you adapt to anything...

This is so very sad. I wonder what happened this family, what became of the children. And I have to say I find the music overlaid on this film clip to be very patronising and annoying. And I simply refuse to judge families for the number of children they have. If they had a smaller family, their circumstance would have still brought them to the predicament they are in. To criticize is to distract from the system which has failed them. And nothing has changed!

Dear God how on earth did they survive with out going mad I wonder what became of them in later life

I was exactly the same in URSS even worse. Just look at one of RU-vid videos. Was the same everywhere. In germany in 50 wasn't great. After the war country was in bits. Italy the same and greece. But URSS WAS EVEN Worse. BUT I WAS BORN THERE in 85 and I appreciate in this days everything I have.

Great job catholic church, birth control a sin No having all those kids squashed into one room is a sin as far as im concerned...

6 people living in 1 room 10'0" x 12'.0".....the average size of a stable is 12'.0"sq. this shocked me!

Memories of Summer 1967 return ,another world

There was 9 of us children in a 3 ROOM house. It was packed.

My family lived in No. 175 Mount Pleasant Buildings in the 60’s. Traynor was their name.

Thanks for uploading.

As hard as it is to believe, there are people who have enough faith that they follow the leader without question. While that is sad, it is also the way of many Catholics. The problem lies with the church and it's teachings. If you could see the gold leaf and extravagant way churches are decorated in Ireland, it would amaze you. All I could think when I entered one was, "What about the people?" It's a sad commentary that the trappings were more important than the people. However, I love Ireland.

'the only way out is to keep having children' says the guy. lol

god remember them we live there for a fews years gra live under us our flat went on fire we had to rooms a cross from each other

Same today, you need to have lots of kids to get a council house..

My parents left Dublin in 1958 with eight children. I was the baby. At first it was hard but the Catholic church were very good to us and our cousin's who also came out. I was shocked to see the cramped living conditions of Dublin in 1981. I was an adult and had plenty of money. I felt as if I was in a third world country. I thought the clergy were different to the Australian clergy, at least in the diocese I lived in.

The Answer regarding Garrett Fitzgerald.....home....yes....he lives (lived) half way up Palmerston Road...a.which, is about 2 minutes walk from Mountpleasant .......

the writer Lee Dunne lived here (Goodbye to the Hill) , also some actress (forget her name), Ken Doherty lived here also

We lived there.I was only a baby.God help the people then.Why should anyone be exposed to that.God Bless all those people who put up with all the nonsense.

Great historical video Rasher .I knew one of the women being interviewed

Question?..why on earth do they keep having children?

Why have any kids if one knows they will live like THAT?

There where worse off families than this, many wouldn't have had that TV it's have been in the pawn shop, many families lived on much less than this, Liverpool 1950's was dreadful for so many families

This is heartbreaking.

The utter ignorance of the comments is staggering. How is using birth control going to clean the toilets? Or build liveable flats? Was the Catholic Church to create jobs in a country with a limited infrastructure? So read and think before you judge the abused too harshly. If you don't, you simply look foolish. Finally, would you make these same comments about a single inner-city American mother with 11 children by 11 different men? I didn't think so.

🎶 A mother’s love is a blessing………………………………………

What's with people keep having kids they cannot afford to raise

having 10 children must have been hard my mums mum had 9 children my mum is irish and i was born in the uk i havent got any children

It's still the same nowadays nothing changed just keep the people with very little money... Keep them DOWN 💔

Part 2 up now

History is repeating itself

This brings ghetto to a whole new level.

and in 2018 theres still nearly 50 thousand familys classed as homeless #wishyouwereanortherner

My grandparents lived at 175 Mountpleasant Buildings.

Bloody hard times then it was hell for them

Rod McKuen poetry was and is terribly depressing

Boyne street had no showers or a bath til 1993

Shocking poverty...very sad.

@bargeanimal Thanks for that. Garrett Fitz lived or lives on Palmerston Road. There must be more famous people from there. Does Eamonn Dunphy have a house on Mount Pleasant Square? And did Benjy Riordan (Tom Hickey) live on Mount Pleasant Ave. Or am I clutching at straws?

Why why why do poor people keep having kids

Jaysis that first line about the younger kids not having a bathroom for a bit of privacy during menstruation. holy shit.

The Church banned contraception.

I rather suspect that most of these people were so very poor because they were supporting over-many of children on their meager income. I had a meager income for most of my life, but I was never so poor because I refrained from pro-creating children that I could not adequately support. I supported myself and my cat to a healthy level on cheap-wage agricultural and proletarian jobs. I eventually married a beautiful crone whose children were grown and flown.

Watch the true life movie: Angela's Ashes.

anyone know the title of this documentary or the presenters name?

Look. The government is committed to providing good social housing and are helping private developers to build houses. Costs of building are escalating and cost-effective materials such as mica are a good alternative to keeping costs down and profit margin as wide as possible. Good value homes are available to people at affordable and realistic prices starting only from €875, 000 rising to € 2.89 million , now come on you can't argue with value like that can you ? Estate Agents will advise you of your options once you give them a full list of your mortgage approval documents and full sources of all income. That is only right in order fair distribution of accommodation is regulated. They government will provide at least 4 or 5 new house builds over the next 50 years so the children in this video can look forward to homes when they are in their 90s by which stage they will need to hand them over to the state for their nursing home care plans. You see a united Ireland will ensure homes for all if only the British were out of Ireland. Thank goodness for EU regulations we would be worse off without them.

@bargeanimal what part of Ranelagh

well the people that lived in those buildings werent able to pay the corpo for the houses/flats they previously lived in so they hardly had money for drink

What is the title of this video? It can't just be 307 comments.

It is not normal in capitalist countries to get a roof if you cannot afford a normal rent. They did. And if they knew they had only 1 room available, with no beds, why did they decide to have 6-7 children? Their choice.

There seems to be quite a few older people with very out of date and insensitive remarks in the comment section

This is how Lorna Byrne must has feel like in 60s

The very famous Maureen O'Hara came from Ranelagh where this place was.

Bless

Completely off topic, but that lady @ 3:00 is seriously good looking

I've never in all of my life seen such disgusting conditions for people to live in .I'm watching this thinking Is this a joke .at one point I think there's 7 or 8 in a tiny little room . It must have been horrendously mentally exhausting for those poor poor mothers here .I'd say living in these shit pits was more of a sin than anything alse .my heart breaks sadness is all I see here & I'm so pleased that times changed. I say this from the bottom of my heart .may god bless each and every one of yous that went through this hell in these such hard times .I hope you now have peace, peace of mind, happiness, and are in lovely warm beautiful homes because you deserve it.

With respect, sadly I truly don’t understand why they kept having so many kids / such large families, when they couldn’t afford a decent roof over their heads , seriously 🤦‍♀️ The men should have spent more time on other activities or work rather than keep producing children they can’t afford 😢 common sense plz guys 🙄 And yes , I am inclined to think it was ( in those days ) more of the responsibility / protection of the male 😬

God bless these people, but why do you have kids if you live in poverty? C'mon now.

So awful,poor parents and innocent children.😁😁😁😁

😢

This was the 60s the 60s FFS ....they treated us like shit

Having too many kids that you simply and logically cannot afford is a huge part of the problem. Just look at most of Africa.

david norris is the narrator.he should be the president.you cant say he has not seen it all.

Nice good talk English

sorry Ken Doherty lived NEAR here

She said she wouldn't put a dog in them but keeps having kids and putting them in them!!!

If they only had one room then what else could they do but procreate. It was a sin for a woman to refuse and she had to do whatever he wanted. 😅

Why do you compare the people with "lice"? Then, these people are 10 times better than you, if so.

WHAT a wonderful world ??? ha I was born in a house like this in Dublin, What a wonderful world Ha Ha ,

Why would anyone continue breeding when they can't feed themselves, never mind what they already have. This was not a bad time in Ireland. I always thought, you would have a good job before you would even consider anything like this.

actress name lived thire irine Dunne

It’s all strange, I know families who smoke and go to pubs on the welfare and I watch videos of a single father who doesn’t smoke bringing up kids single handed who can’t afford to even get his kid a haircut so then he got bullied, called a mop head and had holes in his shoes,. It appears nothing has changed in some parts of Britain and Ireland. Some of these families really need some extra welfare money. Nothing worse than seeing kids go to school on empty stomachs and coming back to a cold house , welcome to 2019, and we give government aid overseas, how about a bit more kept back for some of these needy families with children 😒

This is what happens when you are born into nothing. This is what happens when a few elite own the lands. This is what happens when the others, neither rich or poor, don't rise up on behalf of the lower class. This is what happens when people follow laws. This is real life. This will never change.

John Lennon?

The man at 2 minutes in must have had a job or was he living on welfare???

her husband isn't bad as well.

...DUDE!

This is RTE, fuck me I wish they'd tell the truth nowadays.