Dublin Opinion

“I am not in a position to say how long the Corporation will be obliged to concentrate on the housing of persons from dangerous buildings, but the complete suspension of the normal priorities has been modified by a recent decision of the Corporation, without prejudice to dangerous buildings cases, to make available five per cent of new dwellings in the Edenmore and Finglas areas to families living in seriously overcrowded conditions.” Neil Blaney, Dail Eireann, 10 December 1963

My family moved to Edenmore in the mid-1960s. Before that, they lived in a house on Portland Place, a small lane off Dorsett Street that has since been completely demolished and redeveloped. There were four families living in the house - two families upstairs, and two downstairs. My father and mother, and their six children, lived in two rooms on the top floor. There was a shared kitchen for the four families, and an outside toilet. I was born in the house in Edenmore, so naturally I have no memories of Portland Place, but by any standards, Edenmore was a new and promised land.

The constructiuon of Edenmore estate, however, makes for interesting reading. Plans for the construction of social housing on the site date back to the 1950s - June 1955 to be more precise. That month, Dublin Corporation proposed to build in the Edenmore and Bonnybrook areas, although nothing came of it until December 1962. The reason for the delay was quite simple: emigration.

On 4 November 1965, during a debate on the housing Bill, Deputy Moore told the Dáil that in the 1950s

“People were fleeing from the city. They were emigrating and leaving their houses. Dublin Corporation Housing Committee, under the chairmanship of Deputy Larkin— and with members of the Fianna Fáil Party and the Fine Gael Party— decided to stop building at Coolock and Edenmore because people were emigrating.”

As with so many other Irish social and economic problems, emigration was left to sort out what government failed to deliver. In the case of my own father, he returned to Dublin from London in the early 1950s, where he had worked as a porter in Guy’s hospital. He returned to marry, and raise a family.

At first they lived with my mother’s sister in Finglas. Soon after, they moved to a one-roomed place over a shop on Belvidere Road, again off Dorsett Street. Thereafter, they moved to Portland Place.

Edenmore fell under the dáil constituency of C.J. Haughey, who had worked on securing a seat in Dublin North East for Fianna Fáil since 1951. He finally won the fourth seat in the five seat constituency in 1957. Thereafter he topped the poll each time, sometimes with as much as 40% of the vote.

the area - Dublin North East - was one for celebrities. In 1937, Jim Larkin won a seat as an independent, and kept it until 1944 - by which time he had re-joined the Labour Party. In 1948, Peter Cowen took it for Clann Na Poplachta. in 1954, Denis Larkin took it back for Labour, passing it on to Conor Cruise O’Brien in 1969 - the year I was born, and whom after I am named.

I remember a lot of things about growing up in the 1970s, but the one that never seems to shake itself away from my mind is the amount of seagulls that fed off the dump that bordered the estate. It was a Dublin corporation refuse landfill, and it contained more than a couple of decades of Dublin’s shit. My memories of it are quite clear - those of the Dáil, however, are a bit more terse.

The only reference I can find is a parliamentary question fielded by my namesake, Conor Cruise O’Brien, where he asked the minister for local government at the time:

“if he is aware that the condition of the refuse dump at Edenmore, Dublin, is a source of offence to people living in the area; and if he will indicate when development of the site as a recreation centre will be completed.

[Minister] Cunningham: I am informed that the corporation take every precaution to ensure that dumping at Edenmore should not cause offence and that it is expected the reclamation work will be completed in the present year.

The corporation hope to commence preliminary work on development of the site as a park for recreation purposes in 1973 but date of completion will be dependent on the time involved in natural subsidence.”

My memories of growing up in Edenmore concur with the briefest of Dáil reports - and here lies the rub. The history we have in Ireland, even the social history, is seen through the filtering eyes of political activity and campaigning strategy.

Crucially, to the majority of Irish historians, the working class is seen as a people to be helped - always asking of government but receiving less. The reason for this is that Irish historians meet the working class, almost exclusively, through the records of relief agencies and those who ‘do good.’ In this way, the working class does not have a history, only problems which need to be addressed.

The working class is not listened to, its stories are not the concern of Irish history. As a group it is not asked how it feels, but it is discussed with energy and fervor and, when appropiate, lobbed in arguments from one corner of the Dáil chamber to another. Irish historians are pig in the middle, trying to catch a political football and calling it history.

for my own part, I find myself enormously influenced by this problems approach to working class history - yet terrified of turning any working class analysis into Alice Taylor with curses. but, we soldier on. All a nation has that is unique to itself is his history. And a nation without a true sense of its past - a real grasp of its past - is nothing but an administration with footnotes.