Monto was the nickname for the one-time

red light district A red-light district or pleasure district is a part of an urban area where a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, and adult theaters, are found. In most cases, red-light districts are partic ...

in the northeast of

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. The Monto was roughly the area bounded by

Talbot Street Talbot Street (; ) is a city-centre street located on Dublin's Northside (Dublin), Northside, near to Dublin Connolly railway station. It was laid out in the 1840s and a number of 19th-century buildings still survive. The Irish Life Mall is on t ...

, Amiens Street,

Gardiner Street Gardiner Street () is a long Georgian architecture, Georgian street in Dublin, Ireland. It stretches from the River Liffey at its southern end via Mountjoy Square to Dorset Street, Dublin, Dorset Street at its northern end. The The Custom House, ...

and

Seán McDermott Street Seán McDermott Street () is a street in northeast Dublin, Ireland. It is divided into Seán McDermott Street Lower (east end) and Seán McDermott Street Upper (west end). Located in the north inner city, it runs west–east as an extension of ...

(formerly Gloucester Street) in what would now be called Summerhill. The name is derived from Montgomery Street (now called

Foley Street Foley Street () is a street in Dublin running from James Joyce Street to Buckingham Street Lower. It was formerly known as Worlds End Lane and Montgomery Street. History Initially, Foley was known as Worlds End Lane or World's End Lane in the G ...

), which runs parallel to the lower end of

towards what is now

Connolly Station Connolly station () or Dublin Connolly is the busiest List of railway stations in Ireland, railway station in Dublin and Republic of Ireland, Ireland, and is a focal point in the rail transport in Ireland, Irish route network. On the Northsid ...

. Montgomery Street is believed to have been named after Elizabeth Montgomery, who was married to

Luke Gardiner, 1st Viscount Mountjoy Luke Gardiner, 1st Viscount Mountjoy PC (Ire) (7 February 1745 – 5 June 1798) was an Irish landowner and politician. Biography He was the son of Charles Gardiner by his wife Florinda, daughter of Robert Norman. His sister Anne later became ...

History

In its heyday from the 1860s to the 1950s, there were anything up to 1,600

prostitutes Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-p ...

working there at any one time, with all classes of customers catered for. Dublin was reputed to have the biggest

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

and its profits were aided by the enormous number of

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

garrisons in the city, notably the Royal Barracks (later Collins Barracks and now one of the locations of the

National Museum of Ireland The National Museum of Ireland () is Ireland's leading museum institution, with a strong emphasis on national and some international archaeology, Irish history, Irish art, culture, and natural history. It has three branches in Dublin, the arch ...

). According to legend, King Edward VII of the United Kingdom lost his

virgin Virginity is a social construct that denotes the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. As it is not an objective term with an operational definition, social definitions of what constitutes virginity, or the lack thereof ...

ity in the Monto while still the

Prince of Wales Prince of Wales (, ; ) is a title traditionally given to the male heir apparent to the History of the English monarchy, English, and later, the British throne. The title originated with the Welsh rulers of Kingdom of Gwynedd, Gwynedd who, from ...

. Later, in the 1880s, the Prince, accompanied by his wife Princess Alexandra and their son

Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale (Albert Victor Christian Edward; 8 January 1864 – 14 January 1892) was the eldest child of the Prince and Princess of Wales (later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra). From the time of his ...

strolled unrecognised through the area, having slipped away from their bodyguards and walked through Dublin.

Residents

In Kevin Kearns' oral history collection ''Dublin Tenement Life'', he comments that many of the prostitutes in the Monto were, like

Philomena Lee Annie Philomena Lee (born 24 March 1933) is an Irish woman whose life was chronicled in the 2009 book ''The Lost Child of Philomena Lee'' by Martin Sixsmith. The book was made into a film titled '' Philomena'' (2013), which was nominated for f ...

, unwed mothers who had been disowned both by their families and by their babies' fathers. Although middle-class Dubliners viewed these women as 'whores', the impoverished but devoutly Catholic residents of Monto tenements referred to local prostitutes as "unfortunate girls", and understood that they had often turned to prostitution as a last resort. According to Kearns, "By all accounts, the girls were typically young, attractive, and known for their generosity, especially to slum children". In an interview with Kearns, Mary Corbally, who grew up in a tenement on Corporation Street during the 1920s, recalled, "I don't feel any shame in coming from the Monto, but the reputation was there cause of the girls. We never heard the word 'Whores', never heard 'Prostitute'. Very rarely you'd hear of a brothel, it was a 'kip' and the madams we called them, 'kip-keepers'. But the girls were very good, they were generous. They were very fond of kids. If you went for a message for them you'd get a thruppence or a sixpence. If they seen a kid running around in his bare feet they'd bring him into Brett's and buy him a pair of runners... The girls were generous." Billy Dunleavy, who grew up in the Monto before, during, and after the

Irish War of Independence The Irish War of Independence (), also known as the Anglo-Irish War, was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (1919–1922), Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and Unite ...

, later recalled, "It was a hard life for them girls. They were really all country girls that got into trouble and that's where they finished up. A girl (unwed) with a baby, she was in trouble... from farmers' sons. There was a convent around there and they were put up in there for twelve months with the nuns. They had a hard time. Scrubbing floors and everything else and the nuns standing over them. Oh, the country girls got a hell of a time of it, that's why all the girls was, 'on the town'. That's where they finished up. Now the madams had them dressed up in good new clothes, that was the attraction." According to Kearns, "The madams, several of whom became legendary figures in Dublin folklore, were Dublin women. They were tough, shrewd businesswomen who ruled the roost in a strict maternal manner. They clothed their girls, housed them, and took a high percentage of their earnings. Many of the kip-houses also illegally sold drink which made it easier to part a man from his money... Several madams became quite wealthy, wore expensive jewels, owned cars, and even sent their children off to prestigious schools abroad. Some were possessive of their girls to the point of keeping them virtually housebound for periods."Kevin C. Kearns (1994), ''Dublin Tenement Life'',

Penguin Books Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...

. Page 55. According to Billy Dunleavy, however, "But when they got the money off the men and didn't give it up to the madams they took the clothes off them - stripped! They'd ''strip'' them, take all their clothes off them and put them up in the rooms in the houses. They had a bad ''occupation'' but they were very decent, very, very kind, the girls. You wouldn't hear them cursing and they might give the boy a penny or tuppence to buy sweets. Respectable girls. The wives around here would even say 'hello,' to them and be friendly enough. But we had a hospital here then called the Locke, over here on Townsend Street, and you know what they used to do with the girls (with sexual diseases)? Smother them. When they had

syphilis Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms depend on the stage it presents: primary, secondary, latent syphilis, latent or tertiary. The prim ...

and all... ''incurable''! They used to be smothered. See, there was no such thing as pills at that time. They couldn't cure them. Smother them to take them out of their pain, or give them some kind of a needle. They were so far gone and at that time there was no cure. The hospital was built for that purpose. That's right. They wouldn't do them all, just an odd one. They'd be nearly dead before they'd do it." In an interview with Kearns, Johnny Campbell, who had been a legendary Monto brawler in his youth, "Now there were also mobs fighting against one another, animal gangs. There were four gangs that used to go against one another - Stafford Street,

Ash Street Semer is a small village and civil parish in Suffolk, England. Located adjacent to a bridge over the River Brett on the B1115 between Hadleigh and Stowmarket, it is part of Babergh district. The parish also contains the hamlets of Ash Street ...

Sheriff Street Sheriff Street () is a street in the north inner city of Dublin, Ireland, lying between East Wall and North Wall and often considered to be part of the North Wall area. It is divided into Sheriff Street Lower (west end) and Sheriff Street Uppe ...

, and here, the Monto. Most of the animal gangs was dockers, nearly all of them. The dockers were the toughest men in Dublin. Ah, they ''were'' because they were going through the mill themselves with the big guns of coal and everything. And, oh, my God, they could put away maybe twenty pints... The coal dust and all. Now there could be a big melee on a Saturday night near Paddy Clare's or Jack Maher's (pubs). There could be twenty men fighting. They'd have razor blades and iron bars and knuckle-dusters and flick knives and hooks off the bales for the dock work. And you might see a fella taking off his belt and start swinging it. Like McCauley, he was a ringleader in the Monto, and he got his eyes taken out by a fella named Browne who hit him with a belt, took his eyes out. Browne got nine months." Also according to Billy Dunleavy, "The kip houses were ordinary houses but you'd see the men going in and out, in and out. Oh, men'd come in with big cars and all. Big shots... businessmen, British soldiers, officers in the Army, British ''Generals''. Big shots! It was safe enough. Men wouldn't stay all night. But some of the girls would ''rob'' them. Got 'em drunk. Take his trousers away from him and take his money. And the kip-houses had bouncers - whore's bullies we called them - and if a man didn't give up his money he'd get a hiding."Kevin C. Kearns (1994), ''Dublin Tenement Life'',

. Page 85.

War of Independence

The Monto was also a major hive of IRA activity during the

. Billy Dunleavy further recalls, "The IRA were the best men we ever had at that time. The Tans used to go around in the tenders with a wire over the top and if it was going by up there in

they'd (IRA) say, 'Get out of the way, ''quick''!' and they'd throw a

hand grenade A grenade is a small explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a Shell (projectile), shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A mod ...

into the car. Now

Phil Shanahan Phil Shanahan (4 January 1928 – 5 February 2012) was an Irish hurling, hurler who played as a midfielder for the Tipperary GAA, Tipperary and Dublin GAA, Dublin senior teams. Shanahan made his first appearance for the Tipperary team during t ...

, he owned a pub over there on the corner, he was a great man and he used to hide them after they'd been out on a job. He had cellars and all the IRA men used to go there and hide their stuff. But nobody ''knew'' who an IRA man was. Oh, no, you wouldn't know who an IRA man was around here at that time at all. They were all very secret. They ''had'' to be that way. Your neighbour could be an IRA man. On a Saturday morning, this big fella, he used to give information - he was an ''informer'' against the IRA - and two men came around that morning and riddled him in the public house, riddled him with bullets. The IRA killed him. But they were good men and they wouldn't kill any innocent people." Following the

Anglo-Irish Treaty The 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty (), commonly known in Ireland as The Treaty and officially the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, was an agreement between the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain an ...

(December 1921), the establishment of the

Irish Free State The Irish Free State (6 December 192229 December 1937), also known by its Irish-language, Irish name ( , ), was a State (polity), state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-ye ...

(6 December 1922), and the withdrawal of the

garrison from Dublin, the financial viability of the kip-houses was severely damaged.

Campaign and Dublin Metropolitan Police raid

Between 1923 and 1925, Frank Duff, the founder of the

Legion of Mary The Legion of Mary (, post-nominal letters, postnominal abbreviation L.O.M.) is an international association of members of the Catholic Church who serve on a Voluntary association, voluntary basis. It was founded in Dublin, as a Roman Catholic ...

, and Fr. R.S. Devane launched a campaign, in defiance of the

Crypto-Calvinist Crypto-Calvinism is a pejorative term describing a segment of those members of the Lutheran Church in Germany who were accused of secretly subscribing to Calvinist doctrine of the Eucharist in the decades immediately after the death of Martin Luth ...

, or

Jansenist Jansenism was a 17th- and 18th-century theological movement within Roman Catholicism, primarily active in France, which arose as an attempt to reconcile the theological concepts of free will and divine grace in response to certain development ...

ic view by the Archbishop of Dublin and the middle class that

fallen women "Fallen woman" is an archaic term which was used to describe a woman who has "lost her innocence", and fallen from the grace of God. In 19th-century Britain especially, the meaning came to be closely associated with the loss or surrender of a ...

should just be written off as whores, to empty the "kip-houses" and clean up The Monto. Similarly to St.

Vitalis of Gaza Saint Vitalis (or, Vitalius) of Gaza (died ) was a hermit venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church. He is the patron saint of prostitutes and day-laborers. Life A monk of the monastery of Seridus close to G ...

, Duff and the Legion of Mary began a covert spiritual outreach to the "unfortunate girls" in the Monto and established the Sancta Maria hostel, a safe house for the growing number of prostitutes whom they helped to run away from their "kip keepers" and start a new life. Duff also received the co-operation of the first Catholic Commissioner of the

Dublin Metropolitan Police The Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) was the police force of Dublin in History of Ireland (1801–1923), British-controlled Ireland from 1836 to 1922 and then the Irish Free State until 1925, when it was absorbed into the new state's Garda Sío ...

, former

Irish Army The Irish Army () is the land component of the Defence Forces (Ireland), Defence Forces of Republic of Ireland, Ireland.The Defence Forces are made up of the Permanent Defence Forces – the standing branches – and the Reserve Defence Forces. ...

General

W.R.E. Murphy William Richard English-Murphy, DSO MC known as W.R.E. Murphy (26 January 1890 – 5 March 1975) was an Irish soldier and policeman. He served as an officer with the British Army in World War I and later in the National Army. In the Civil Wa ...

. The campaign ended with 120 arrests and Gen. Murphy announced the closure of all the remaining kip-houses following a DMP raid on 12 March 1925.

Post-1925 raid

However, kip-houses continued to exist in the Monto, long after the 1925 raid. This was enabled by both

political corruption Political corruption is the use of powers by government officials or their network contacts for illegitimate private gain. Forms of corruption vary but can include bribery, lobbying, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, influen ...

and

bribery Bribery is the corrupt solicitation, payment, or Offer and acceptance, acceptance of a private favor (a bribe) in exchange for official action. The purpose of a bribe is to influence the actions of the recipient, a person in charge of an official ...

of the Irish Police, or

Garda Síochána (; meaning "the Guardian(s) of the Peace") is the national police and security service of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is more commonly referred to as the Gardaí (; "Guardians") or "the Guards". The service is headed by the Garda Commissio ...

, well into the 1950s. According to Billy Dunleavy, "The Guards knew what was going on, but they couldn't do anything. But if the kip-houses were selling bottles of stout the Guards could get the bottles and break them up. See, there were manholes out there, where the water goes down. And they'd (kip-owners) put the bottles of stout down the manhole when the police'd be coming. Now your bottle of stout at that time was only around eight pence but if a man brought a girl to Becky Cooper's kip they'd be charged about a ''pound'' for that bottle. The police knew where the porter's be hid and they'd raid and take them up and break them." These kip-houses included the "Cozy Kitchen" on North King Street and "Cafe Continental" on Bolton Street,Dublin, both of which were run by legendary Dublin madam Dolly Fawcett and remained open, enabled by corruption in the

, well into the 1950s. According to Northside resident Noelle Hughes, who knew Dolly Fawcett in her seventies, "The Cozy Kitchen" was located in the basement of a tenement house at 2 North King Street and was run by Dolly's son Stephen Fawcett until it closed down in 1957. Dolly's other son ran the Cafe Continental on Bolton Street.Kevin C. Kearns (1994), ''Dublin Tenement Life'',

. Page 198. According to retired Guard Paddy Casey, the Cafe Continental was located next to the Bolton Street Technical School. Hughes later recalled, "The girls would be around the place, at the counter, and a man would start chatting them up. They were mostly country girls up from the country, from seventeen into their thirties. They weren't high class prostitutes or anything like that, they were just ordinary commoners. I suppose they charged about two pounds. They'd bring the blokes off to a flat. Or take him around a laneway or around the back, somewhere like that. The whole neighbourhood know of this - the whole of ''Dublin'' knew about it cause the sailors off the ships used to go in there an awful lot. Men, they'd come from the docks and all over. It was mostly all outsiders cause the men in the

tenements A tenement is a type of building shared by multiple dwellings, typically with flats or apartments on each floor and with shared entrance stairway access. They are common on the British Isles, particularly in Scotland. In the medieval Old Town, i ...

didn't have money." Hughes continues, "And the police raided it a couple of times but they got backhands. Oh, there was backhands going on all the time, paying policemen off. And there was a bit of an argument a couple times about closing it down but nothing ever materialised of it. And then it eventually closed up and the Fawcetts went off to England."

In popular culture

Folk songs

* The Irish

folk song Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

Monto (Take Her Up to Monto) "Monto (Take Her Up To Monto)" is an Irish folk song, written in 1958 by George Desmond Hodnett, music critic of the ''Irish Times'', and popularised by the Dubliners. Frank Harte was also known to sing the song. It refers to Monto, the historic ...

" was written by

George Desmond Hodnett George Desmond "Hoddy" Hodnett (25 February 1918 – 23 September 1990) was an Irish musician, songwriter and long-time jazz and popular music critic for the ''Irish Times''.The Dubliners The Dubliners () were an Folk music of Ireland, Irish folk band founded in Dublin in 1962 as The Ronnie Drew Ballad Group, named after its founding member; they subsequently renamed themselves The Dubliners. The line-up saw many changes in pers ...

several years later. Irish singer

Róisín Murphy Róisín Marie Murphy ( , ; born 5 July 1973) is an Irish singer, songwriter and record producer who first became known in the 1990s as one half of the Pop music, pop duo Moloko alongside the English musician Mark Brydon. After the breakup of M ...

named her 2016 album ''

Take Her Up to Monto ''Take Her Up to Monto'' is the fourth solo studio album by Irish singer Róisín Murphy. It was released on 8 July 2016 by Play It Again Sam. The album was co-produced with longtime collaborator Eddie Stevens during the same five-week sessi ...

'' in reference to the song. * Monto is also twice mentioned in the Irish folk song "

Waxies' Dargle "The Waxies' Dargle" is a traditional Irish folk song about two Dublin "aul' wans" (older ladies/mothers) discussing how to find money to go on an excursion. It is named after an annual outing to Ringsend, near Dublin city, by Dublin cobblers (w ...

". * It is referred to repeatedly in the Pete St. John song "Johnny McGory" (also popularised by The Dubliners). * Monto, Frank Duff, and the L.O.M. are also mentioned in the Peter Yeates song "Honor Bright", the story of the 1925 murder of a prostitute (Lizzie O'Neil) who used the pseudonym "Honour Bright". The song is sung at the top of Act Two of '' The Ferryman'' by

Jez Butterworth Jeremy Butterworth (born March 4, 1969) is a British playwright, screenwriter, and film director. He has gained recognition for his unique voice in contemporary theater, often blending themes of myth, folklore, and realism. He has received a T ...

as the Carney boys come in from the harvest. In 2019

Pierce Turner Pierce Turner is an Irish singer-songwriter. After forming a duo with Larry Kirwan he went solo in the mid-1980s and has since released several albums Biography Turner grew up in the port town of Wexford, where his mother ran a retail outlet ...

included a version on his collection of traditional songs, ''Vinegar Hill''.

Literature

* The Monto was immortalised as "Nighttown" in the "Circe" chapter of

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...

's novel ''

Ulysses Ulysses is the Latin name for Odysseus, a legendary Greek hero recognized for his intelligence and cunning. He is famous for his long, adventurous journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, as narrated in Homer's Odyssey. Ulysses may also refer ...

'', in which protagonists

Leopold Bloom Leopold Paula Bloom is the fictional protagonist and hero of James Joyce's 1922 novel '' Ulysses''. His peregrinations and encounters in Dublin on 16 June 1904 mirror, on a more mundane and intimate scale, those of Ulysses/Odysseus in Homer's ...

and

Stephen Dedalus Stephen Dedalus is James Joyce's literary alter ego, appearing as the protagonist and antihero of his first, semi-autobiographic novel of artistic existence, ''A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'' (1916), and as a major character in his 19 ...

visit a kip-house together. * Catherine Ann Cullen has written a poem, "Monto Cross", on the subject of the Monto.

References

External links

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20081010184933/http://www.dublinfolklore.ie/monto/ Dublin Folklore - Monto Stories from Dublin, James Joyce, Night Town,IrelandResearched by Terry Fagan, historian and tour guide.
Dublin brothel faces bulldozer (2003)

''Monto Cross'', read by Catherine Ann Cullen
{{History of Dublin Corruption in Ireland History of Dublin (city) Former red-light districts in the Republic of Ireland Organized crime in Ireland Police misconduct in Ireland Prostitution in the Republic of Ireland Violence against women in Ireland