Dublin in the Early Photography: Vintage Photos Capture Street Scenes of Dublin in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

Take a step back in time through these vintage photos capturing Dublin in its old-time glory. Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Dublin was in the midst of change.

These photos? They freeze those moments, showing us what life was like back then.

The first railway in Ireland was built in 1834, when a 7-mile (11.3-km) link connected Dublin with the port of Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire).

As a result, suburbs began to grow along the coast to the south. Suburban development around the city continued and intensified over the next 70 years.

Dublin Old Photos 19th and early 20th century

Grafton Street in Dublin, ca. 1870s.

Although Dublin remained moderately prosperous on the surface, it was festering underneath. The city had some of the worst slums in Europe.

Infant and child mortality rates were uncommonly high, with tuberculosis constituting a particular scourge; sanitation and hygiene were practically nonexistent.

An investigation in 1910 revealed that 20,000 families were each living in just one room.

A two-week survey of 22 public houses, or taverns, disclosed more than 46,000 women and 28,000 children among the customers.

Great view of a bustling O’Connell Bridge and Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street) in Dublin, 1890.

Though described as “the second city of the (British) Empire”, its large number of tenements became infamous, being mentioned by writers such as James Joyce.

An area called Monto (in or around Montgomery Street off Sackville Street) became infamous also as the British Empire’s biggest red-light district, its financial viability aided by the number of British Army barracks and hence soldiers in the city, notably the Royal Barracks.

Monto finally closed in the mid-1920s, following a campaign against prostitution by the Roman Catholic Legion of Mary, its financial viability having already been seriously undermined by the withdrawal of soldiers from the city following the Anglo-Irish Treaty (December 1921) and the establishment of the Irish Free State (6 December 1922).

Horse-drawn omnibus on Westmoreland Street, Dublin, ca. 1865.

In 1914, after nearly three decades of agitation, Ireland seemed on the brink of Home Rule (or self-government).

However, instead of a peaceful handover from direct British rule to limited Irish autonomy, Ireland and Dublin saw nearly ten years of political violence and instability.

This eventually resulted in a much more complete break with Britain than Home Rule would have represented.

By 1923, Dublin was the capital of the Irish Free State, an all but independent Irish state, governing 26 of Ireland’s 32 counties.

Main Street in Blackrock, Dublin, 1875.

Between 1922 and 1932 the first administrations of the new Irish Free State were preoccupied with trying to establish new government institutions and to repair the damage inflicted on the economy by the Troubles of 1916–23.

Housing took a low priority, and it was not until the advent of Eamon de Valera’s Fianna Fáil government in 1932 that a concerted program of home building got under way.

Some of the worst inner-city slums were cleared, and the residents were moved to new housing projects on the city’s outskirts.

With the introduction of better health care, old-age pensions, and children’s allowances, the condition of Dublin’s poor began to improve.

O’Connell Monument under construction, Dublin, 1880.

Patrick Street, Dublin, 1898.

Sackville Street in Dublin, 1890.

Statue of William III on Dame Street in Dublin in May 1890.

Stephen’s Green, Dublin, ca. 1875.

The O’Connell Monument, Dublin, ca. 1890.

Two gentlemen admire the statue of Edmund Burke outside Trinity College, Dublin, ca. 1868-70.

Gorgeous bustling street scene taken at the corner of Earl Street and Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street), that also captures a great array of businesses in turn of the century Dublin.

Very bustling scene at College Green in Dublin, late 19th century.

Men surveying the wreckage of Linenhall Barracks in the aftermath of the Easter Rising in Dublin, May 1916.

The remains of the Dublin Bread Company at 6-7 Lower Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street) after the Easter Rising in 1916.

Pedestrians and traffic on North Circular Road, Dublin, looking towards St. Peter’s Church, ca. 1915.

One moment in the life of late 19th/early 20th century Grafton Street in Dublin.

Parkgate Street in Dublin, ca. 1910.

February 9, 1924. Brand spanking new, and a snip at £360 – this is the Vulcan Demonstration Van. Its chassis could take 20-25 cwt., and it was distributed by B.T. Lambert Ltd., 3 Cornmarket, Dublin.

Lovely candid shot of a woman passing a newsagents on Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street), Dublin, ca. 1902.

Funeral procession passing through Berkeley Street in Dublin, ca. 1897-1904.

View from around the corner on North Frederick Street and Hardwicke Street, Dublin, ca. 1912.

Hard at work assembling bicycles at a firm called O’Neill’s, 1900.

Main Street, Belturbet, Co. Cavan, late 19th century.

Funeral procession of Fenian Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa. Trams drew to a halt and crowds lined the streets as the coffin passed. O’Rossa had died on Staten Island on 29 June 1915, but his body was brought back to Ireland for burial in Glasnevin Cemetery.