The Mount Street Club was a unique response to poverty and despair in 1930s Dublin
Initially conceived as simply a place where unemployed men ‘could go in out of the rain, sit down and have a read of the daily paper’, the Mount Street Club developed into a far more elaborate concept advocating self-help co-operative principles.
1934-1949: The Mount Street Club
The Mount Street Club was established in November 1934 and officially opened a year later with 60 members. It was founded by a group of Dublin businessmen who decided to combat the poverty they saw all around them by setting up an unemployed men’s ‘club’. Members could earn ‘tallies’ which they could exchange for food, clothing, fuel or furniture.
The Mount Street Club came into being at a time when there was a new spirit striving for social improvement, against a backdrop of rampant poverty and destitution. However, the founders never viewed their creation as a charity. Instead, the planning of the club was heavily influenced by the early nineteenth century co-operative and socialist ideals of the Welshman Robert Owen.
The Club was managed by members for members, though with the control and oversight of the Governor’s Committee. Members paid a weekly subscription of one ‘tally’ which was earned for one hour of work. Accumulated tallies in excess of the subscription could be exchanged for food, clothing, tobacco and other commodities and services.
Occupations which members could undertake for tallies ranged from baking to rabbit breeding, cycle assembly and repairs, distributing pamphlets and house repairs. Daily cleaning, scrubbing and polishing, bookkeeping, carrying messages and serving meals all earned tallies. Meanwhile tallies could be exchanged for a wide range of goods and services which included by 1941, clothes, cycle hire, shaves and haircuts (delivered by the on-site barber). Lunch and dinner were served daily, providing members with well-balanced meals. By 1938, membership of the Club stood at 550, with 6,800 meals served annually.
In 1939, the the Mount Street Club Farm was established in Clondalkin, with 37 men residing and working full-time there by the end of the year. By 1940, Membership of the Mount Street Club was at an all-time peak
Club shop pricelist, 1941
The Mount Street Club barber
Mount Street Club Farm
81 Lower Mount Street, 1938
An image of a tally, 1938
Mount Street Club workshop, 1941
1950-2006: Change and evolution
While the Mount Street Club continued to provide employment and opportunity throughout World War II, by 1950 membership numbers were dropping.
As emigration rose during the 1950s, the Club continued to lose members and by 1959 was threatened by a lack of funds. Through the 1960s and 1970s the Club’s activities were gradually wound down.
The Mount Street premises were sold in 1971 and the Club moved to 62-64 Fenian Street the following year. In 1973 the farm finally closed and in 1984 Club membership ceased completely.
While the Club continued to support various initiatives, including the establishment of the Irish Nautical Trust in 1987, by the 1990s the governors decided to wind up the activities of the Club and create a legacy project. This led eventually to the sale of Fenian Street in 2006. For the first time, the governors had a large sum of money but they had no obvious direction or project to fund.
Gateway stones from the Mount Street Club Farm, now resting in the garden of a Trustee.
“To me the legacy of the Mount Street Club was its almost unique approach to reducing unemployment and that it served its purpose so admirably for so long.”
— Bill Somerville-Large, Former Governor of the Mount Street Club and Founding Trustee of the Mount Street Club Trust
In 1997 RTÉ broadcast a radio documentary about the Mount Street Club. It’s a fascinating listen and includes contributions from current trustee Charlie Delap’s mother Kathleen as well as Beatrice “Sammy” Somerville-Large, aunt of Bill Somerville-Large, a former Trustee and Chairperson of the Mount Street Club Trust. Click the button below to listen on the RTÉ website.
2006-2018: Mount Street Club Trust
In 2007, following the sale of Fenian Street, the Mount Street Club Trust was incorporated as a private charitable trust with a new main object and purpose, in brief, “the relief of the effects of disadvantage and poverty associated primarily with unemployment.” The trustees could now directly fund charities for the benefit of all those who were disadvantaged in society rather than simply focus on the unemployed man directly.
In 2008, the trustees invited applications for funding and between 2009-2013 the trust funded a variety of innovative projects to benefit people who were unemployed as well as young children in disadvantaged families in the Greater Dublin area. These projects included the INOU Building Futures course, Ballymun Job Centre’s eMerge programme, First Step micro-finance, Grow Your Own Future, Community Growers Fund and the National Early Years Access Initiative.
Ballymun Job Centre eMerge, 2011
Community Growers Fund, Mud Island, 2011
Children attending an early numeracy play event at the Early Learning Initiative, National College of Ireland, 2011
The history of the Mount Street Club was published in 2014. Essays, photographs and archive material draw on the the rich and varied threads of the Club’s story from its foundation through to its evolution into the Mount Street Club Trust, all in the context of Dublin’s own changing social history. Click the button below to access a digital copy of the book.
2019-Present: Hope & Ambition
In 2019, the trustees undertook a strategic review of the Trust’s current activities and its ambitions for the future. From this emerged the Hope & Ambition initiative which was launched in April 2019 with the aim of promoting a better society as a whole by creating an antidote to isolation, encouraging cross-sectoral interaction, facilitating sharing of insights, supporting leadership, and influencing the wider philanthropic community.
Since then the trustees have continued to reflect on and explore how the Mount Street Club Trust can continue to evolve as a positive, relevant and impactful philanthropic trust, true to the principles and objectives of the original Mount Street Club.
“The future of the Mount Street Club Trust and Hope & Ambition are one and the same. We want to take this idea and have it move and evolve.”
— Sarah Perrem, Trustee of the Mount Street Club Trust