1916 Diary: ‘Irish Times’ letter writers worry about ‘motor lorries’ and daughters working

March 2nd, 1916

Letters to Editor, ‘The Irish Times’

Sir – I think it is about time that the citizens should protest against the utter disregard of their rights shown by the owners of heavy motor lorries which rush through their streets from morning till night, splashing mud and shaking houses to their very foundations. I occupy a house on Lower Ormond Quay (where the traffic is unusually heavy), and the house shakes from top to bottom as these lorries pass. Already the walls of quite a number of houses (including my own) on this very portion of the quays have had to be re-built, owing to this traffic . . . – Yours, “Ratepayer”

Sir – I have three grown-up daughters, three servants, and a house, the rent of which I am put to the pin of my collar to pay. My eldest daughter works at a munitions factory. She has to be there at 6 am, and the servants have to get up in time to call her and to get her tea. The work she does all day is of a simple, manual kind, the equivalent of cleaning stair-rods. The other two girls attend later at the same place to prepare and serve meals for those engaged in the factory.

Now, if we were to discharge the three servants, and if the girls were to do at home what they do in the factory, there would be three persons permanently liberated for productive work, an all-round economy of labour, and our rent difficulty would be solved. Curiously, this simple settlement of a question at present presenting itself to many seems to have occurred to nobody. What is wrong about it? I enclose my card. If you publish it, I shall get it hot. – Yours, etc., “Tub Straight Road”

An editorial was supportive: “We confess that we can find no flaw in this argument. Without seeking to disparage the magnificent work that educated women are doing in the war factories, in the hospitals, and in the sewing-rooms, we suspect that a good many of these ladies would be just as well, if not better, employed at home . . . Patriotism, like charity, begins at home.”

Today, 2016

Michael Fewer, author and architectural historian, gives an illustrated lecture on State architect TJ Byrne’s work in the reconstruction of the GPO, the Four Courts and the Custom House, rescuing them from the damage they suffered in the 1916 Rising or the Civil War. Today, at 6.30pm in the Helen Roe Theatre, Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 63 Merrion Square, Dublin. Admission €10 (€5 students).