Tenement trouble
Poor people crammed into the old stone houses and very soon the the living conditions became dreadful.
Have a look at these photos of the tenements in Cork City, taken around 1900.
Inside a Cork tenement circa 1910
© Colman O'Mahony
© Colman O'Mahony
This photograph above shows a bed and some other pieces of furniture.
The photo below is of a toilet in a tenement. It would have been shared by many families. It illustrates the cramped conditions and the low standards of hygiene a tenement dweller would live with.
Toilet in a tenement
© Colman O'Mahony
© Colman O'Mahony
On 26 October 1874 The Cork Constitution remarked on housing conditions for the poorer classes in the following terms:
"Every filthy back street is an opening for a pestiferous lane which, in turn, is only an outlet for other alleys and courts that are receptacles and depots for every abomination and pollution."