The house on 116 Cork Street looked out over the Liberties when uprising broke out in 1798, the rebels’ call to throw off British rule and create a just future for Ireland resonating within the country’s vast underclass of exploited tenants.
When 1916 rolled around, the house had a small role in the rebellion, according to the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, as the premises of the company that made the flag for the Easter Rising.
A century after that banner was hoisted and rebels proclaimed a republic that would pursue the “happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts”, the old house began a different chapter of history.
It was sold in 2020 for €815,000, according to the Property Price Register, not long after it had featured in The Irish Times as a sign of the urban regeneration of area – a house that had been lovingly refurbished back to its traditional use as a four-bedroom, two-bathroom home.
It was not long before Vitor, now 25, moved in. He came to Dublin from Brazil to learn English, and remembers the long queues outside property viewings as he searched for somewhere to live.
When he moved into Cork Street two days later, he discovered that there weren’t going to be 12 people living there, but 28. There was no living room
He heard about the Cork Street house from a Spanish acquaintance who was working informally linking up tenants with bed places. This house would have 12 people sharing, he was told. He went to see it, and was asked to give a €600 deposit there and then to reserve his space.
Nowadays, Vitor speaks excellent English with an Irish lilt. But he admits his language skills at the time were not quite up to understanding the rental contract he was asked to sign. The agency seemed strangely reluctant to give him a copy.
[ Landlord Marc Godart accused of using three properties for short-term lets without required permission ]
When he moved into Cork Street two days later, he discovered that there weren’t going to be 12 people living there, but 28. There was no living room.
Vitor shared a room with three others. The rent for his bed was €450 a month. On the 10th of each month, an agent would come to the house to collect the money. “It was obligatory to pay in cash, always,” Vitor recalls.
With 27 housemates, it was difficult to keep the place clean. There was a queuing system for the two showers. The tumble dryer broke. It was forbidden to open the windows, and his friend received an eviction notice for hanging her clothes outside to dry, he remembers.
Then one of the toilets stopped flushing. For a month, 28 people shared just one toilet, Vitor recalls.
They endured the situation because of a lack of other options.
“We were really afraid not to have any house, or not to have somewhere to live, so we had to accept this situation,” Vitor remembers. Now back in Brazil, he doubts much has changed in Dublin.
The kitchen CCTV camera, which records audio and video of tenants, shows a line of fridges installed to cope with large numbers of people living in the property
“Probably it is happening with someone now. We need to try to help those people to find houses, or have more houses for those people, so they don’t suffer the same stuff and have the dignity to live in a good house, pay the rent, and pay the taxes correctly.”
Internal records of the rental operation run by Luxembourg landlord Marc Godart show 33 bunk bed places are available to book in 116 Cork Street, some in rooms shared by six people.
[ Under the eye of landlord Marc Godart: how a tenant who objected to CCTV surveillance was evicted ]
The kitchen CCTV camera, which records audio and video of tenants, shows a line of fridges installed to cope with large numbers of people living in the property.
Many tenants have challenged Godart through the Residential Tenancies Board over invalid evictions and other breaches, and many have won. Victorious tenants often find, however, that he does not pay the damages ordered.
If they have the money, they can pursue their payment through the legal system by seeking a court order. But even then, collection may not be simple.
In one recent case, a sheriff was appointed to enforce payment. When he tried to collect, he found that the company against which the court payment order was made appeared to have no assets.
In the wake of the Easter Rising, the impoverished Irish State outsourced some public services, such as education and healthcare, to the Church. More recently, housing was given over to the free market to provide.
It was just one of the 50 Irish companies of which Godart is the director or secretary, with more roles on companies abroad. If the companies that tenants secure court orders against retain no assets, the sheriff may find there is nothing to seize. Enforcement seems to run into a dead end. That’s if tenants have been able to figure out who their landlord is in the first place, which due to the anonymised communications and dealings with informal intermediaries can require detective work.
The long history of 116 Cork Street underscores that progress does not relentlessly march forward. Things can slip backwards.
In the wake of the Easter Rising, the impoverished Irish State outsourced some public services, such as education and healthcare, to the Church. More recently, housing was given over to the free market to provide.
Cork Street has witnessed the full span of the quest for an Ireland that would provide just and decent living conditions for those within it. The Irish State must now consider whether the institutions it has created are capable of realising those dreams.
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