ABSTRACT
The year 1914 marked a turning point in Irish housing history: Home Rule was finally agreed but not implemented, and major housing funds were earmarked by the British government for Ireland but not delivered. After the war, the 1919 Addison Act, passed in Westminster with the aim of building ‘Homes fit for Heroes’, was never fully implemented in Ireland because by then the battle for independence from Britain was well advanced. The 1919 Housing (Ireland) Act aimed specifically to compel Irish local authorities to build with direct state subsidies. Between 1914 and 1928, overcrowding in the city increased, partly through increased dereliction, partly through lack of building, and there was a big rise in the number of unfit houses. The inter-war years were dominated by economic and political problems that left Ireland’s housing situation very little better than before independence.
