Ireland -- History -- War of Independence, 1919-1921; Irish question
Instead of migrating, a girl may marry. But her husband in most cases can't
make enough money to support a family. To keep an average family of five,
just going, on food alone, costs $370 a year. Some farm hands get only
$100. An average unskilled worker obtains $260 a year. An organized
unskilled worker receives $367, and an organized skilled worker, $539.
Therefore, if a girl marries, she has not only to bear children but to go
out to work beside. Their constant toil makes the women of Ireland
something less than well-cared-for slaves.
Take the mother in Dublin. In Dublin there have long been too many casual
laborers. One-third of Dublin's population of 300,000 are in this class.
Now, while wages for some sorts of casual labor like dock work increased
during the war, it has become almost impossible for Dublin laborers to get
a day's job. For the unemployed are flocking for the good wages from the
four fields of Ireland. On the days the man is out of work the woman must
go out to wash or "char." I understood these conditions better after I
spent a night in a typical one-room home in the dockers' quarters near the
Liffey.
Widow Hannan was my hostess. The widow is a strong, black-haired young
woman who took an active part in the rebellion of 1916, and whose husband
was killed fighting under James Connolly. We slept in the first floor
front. In with the widow lay her three children, and in the cot
catty-corner from the bed I was bunked. Just when the night air was
thinning to gray there was a shattering rap on the ground-level window. The
half-dressed young factory daughter clambered over the others and ripped
down the rain coat that served as a night-time window curtain. Against the
square-paned window was hunched a forward-shouldered woman.
As she was being beckoned to the door, I rose, and to do my hair had to
wedge myself in between the breakfast-table and the filmy mirror that hung
among the half-tone pictures of the rebels of 1916. On the iron mantel,
gray with coal dust, there was a family comb.
"God save all here," said the neighbor entering. "Mary, himself's had no
work for four days. Keep the young ones out of the grate for me. I've got
to go out washing."
"My sister-in-law has a husband and seven children to support," said the
widow in explanation to me. "During the war, he could do with her going out
just once in a while--now it's all the time." Then to the sister-in-law:
"I've a wash myself today."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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