Archive Item of the Month: St Ultan's Utility Society Minute Book
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| ffrench-Mullen House, Charlmont Street |
This month’s archive item is a topical one,
the minute book of the Utility Society established by St. Ultan’s Hospital (SU/3/4/1). The
Utility Society was responsible for the construction of the Ffrench-Mullen House
on Charlemont Street in Dublin, the
demolition of which started this week.
St Ultan’s Hospital was established by
Kathleen Lynn in 1919 on Charlemont Street, to provide health care to the
children of Dublin’s inner-city poor. In 1933 the Memorandum of Association of
the hospital was amended to allow the hospital;
‘to
establish, undertake, promote, become a member of, contribute to, superintend,
administer, carry out the functions of, and appoint deputies to control and
manage a Public Utility Society ... and to invest funds and property of the
Association to and in such a Society and in or through the Society to apply for
and receive Grants’.
In 1932 the Irish government passed the
Housing Financial and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1932, which provided for
loans and grants for public housing building projects, especially in the case
of houses for those displaces by slum clearance programmes. It was this Act that
caused St Ultan’s to change their Memorandum of Association and expand their
remit from health care to social housing.
For Lynn, and the St Ultan’s staff, who had
been working with the inner city poor for nearly 15 years and had seen the
poverty and disease cause by life in Dublin’s slums, participation in the new
programme is not surprising. The minute book shows that the first
meeting of the Utility Society took place on 3rd November 1933, and
the first business of the meeting was to appoint a secretary, the minutes
records that the committee ‘agreed
unanimously to appoint Miss ffrench Mullen’.
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| Madeline ffrench-Mullen |
The Society oversaw the management of a number of flats and shops on Charlemont Street, and in the 1944 began on the construction of the new flats, designed by Michael Scott. Scott (whose best known works include Busáras
and the Abbey Theatre) had worked as the hospital’s architect for years. In the 1930s he had drawn up plans for a new
Dublin Children’s Hospital, to replace St Ultan’s however the National
Children’s Hospital, which, due to opposition from the church was never built.
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| Michael Scott |
When the first block of flats was opened they
were named ffrench-Mullen House, to mark the contribution, to both the Utility
Society and St Ultan’s Hospital,of Madeleine ffrench-Mullen, who died 26th
May 1944. Despite the best intentions of the Utility
Society the management of ffrench-Mullen house and the other flats proved
difficult. There were problems with the collection of rents from tenants and
the conditions of the flats, and eventually the management of the property was
handed over to Dublin Corporation.