Mount Street Club

Context

Creator(s): Mount Street Club

• Administrative History ↴

  The Mount Street Club was founded in 1934 to provide assistance to unemployed workers in Dublin. It was a charitable organisation founded by Philip Townsend Somerville-Large and Major James Hardress de Warrenne Waller who believed that rather than handing out cash payments such as the dole there were more constructive methods of relieving the social problems caused by unemployment. This group were inspired by the idea that men should be employed by work in order to provide for their own livelihood as well as that of their family. The Club was based at 81/82 Mount Street, Dublin 2 and had two Trustees, Philip T. Somerville-Large and Hugh Alexander Delap. It was managed by a Board of Governors who held regular meetings in order to monitor and direct the workings of the Club. In 1939, it purchased a farm, ‘Larkfield’ in Clondalkin, Co. Dublin which gave the men employment and provided food and other materials for use in production of other goods. The Club did not pay money to the men who worked in the Club or on the farm but had their own currency in operation, the tally. This was a system whereby the men worked on a certain activity for a certain amount of time in order to earn a certain number of tallies which could then be exchanged within the Club for food or other goods. After World War II, an increase in unemployment benefit and an increase in emigration led to falling membership and during this time the tally system ended. The farm was bought by compulsory purchase order in the early 1970s by Dublin Corporation for a housing scheme. The profit from the sale was invested with the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests for Ireland. The lease ended in the Mount Street Club in 1974 and the Club moved premises to 62/63 Fenian Street. The men who had lived at the Mount Street Club Farm were housed in hostels, paid for by the Club. From this time onwards, the men applied to join the Club and employers contacted the management for workers. In this way, men were assigned to various jobs and paid in cash by the employers. In 1984, the arrangement of all casual work for men ended. The building at Fenian Street was no longer being used to house the Club and in 1979, the ground floor was given rent free to the Mount Street Club Day Activity Centre for the disabled, which was run by the Eastern Health Board. Feasibility studies were commissioned in order to pursue new avenues of activity for the Club. Some of the Governors became involved in the Grand Canal Basin Working Group (later Grand Canal Docks Trust) in the late eighties and as a result became involved in a series of community schemes. In 1987, the Dublin Nautical Trust (later the Irish Nautical Trust) was formed. It aimed to provide unemployed people with the opportunity of furthering their practical and social skills through ship building and other maintenance projects based at Grand Canal Dock. Although the Dublin Nautical Trust was established as a separate identity, it continued to rely heavily on funding from the Mount Street Club. From 1991, the Club raised income through the rental of serviced offices and car parking spaces at Fenian Street. A partnership with Focus Ireland, to transform the premises at Fenian Street into a hostel along the lines of a Foyer project, was investigated in the late 1990s and later abandoned in 2001. It was decided that the Mount Street Club was no longer true to its original five principles laid down during its foundation in 1934 as a club for unemployed workers. Thus, it was dissolved in 2006 and its assets redistributed at the discretion of the Trustees.

• Archival History ↴

  These records were held in the Mount Street Club premises at Mount Street and when the Club transferred to Fenian Street premises the records were also transferred. They also contain some records from the Day Activity Centre, Irish Nautical Trust and Grand Canal Docks Trust. In February 2006, the collection was transferred to Dublin City Archives at the request of the Trustees and the Board of Governors of the Mount Street Club, as the charity was about to be dissolved.

• Immediate Source Acquisition ↴

  Official Transfer