‘Hidden Dublin: from the Monto to Little Jerusalem’ is a series created by Dr Irial Glynn of Leiden University and Donal Fallon of University College Dublin. The series is based on their UCD Adult Education Lifelong Learning course of the same name. 

Episode 1: The Rise and Demise of Dublin
Episode 2: Health and Housing in Dublin: from tenements to suburbia
Episode 3: Dublin’s Multicultural History

Hidden Dublin: from the Monto to Little Jerusalem

The course will provide people with an insight into the social history of the Irish capital in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By combining classroom lectures with walking tours, the course aims to shine a light on the lives of ordinary Dublin citizens historically, looking at issues like housing, class, culture, politics and more. Irish history has traditionally focused on famous male characters, yet this course aims to explore the lives of the forgotten and marginalised. The class will introduce people to some of the more usavoury aspects of Dublins past, while also celebrating the rich history of the city.

The course aims to answer some of the questions that exist around this fascinating period in Dublin’s history:

• Why, for instance, did Dublin in the early twentieth century have similar infant mortality rates to Calcutta?
• What reception did Dublin’s sizeable Jewish population and other migrant communities receive?
• Why was Dublin’s Red Light District one of the largest in Europe?

The class will also look at the revolutionary period in Irish history and examine just what it meant for ordinary Dubliners. While much has been written about British soldiers and Irish republicans at the time, how did civilians fare?

By visiting locations central to the class, this rich history is brought to life. Among the locations explored in the walking tours are Portobello (once the historic Jewish quarter of Dublin), the North Inner-City (looking at class and prostitution) and the docklands (looking at economy in Dublin historically).

The course is open to the public and begins on 23 February 2016. For more details, including information on how to enrol, go to ucd.ie/adulted/

Image: ‘Mansion of Misery’, Marshalsea Barracks, Dublin, 1969 (National Library of Ireland on The Commons).