NOVEMBER 2ND, 1932: "Hunger marches" were a regular form of protest in Britain by the autumn of 1932, three years after the Wall Street crash and in the depths of the Great Depression. The more common form of protest in Ireland at the lack of jobs and minimal social assistance was to seek work through local councils and improved welfare from local health boards, as this daily round-up of protests illustrated.
A deputation representing the Limerick unemployed waited upon Mr O’Donovan, private secretary to the Free State Minister for Local Government and Public Health , at the Custom House, Dublin, yesterday. The deputation stated that the poor and unemployed of Limerick were living in a state of grave distress and were suffering from severe hardship because of the unhealthy slums in which they were forced to live. A grant of £20,000 was urged to provide immediate work on roads, by-ways and other schemes. The rate of infantile mortality, it was stated, was high. During the past three months 108 cases of diphtheria and 68 cases of scarlet fever among children were admitted to the Limerick City Hospital. A housing scheme for the city should be started immediately, to provide houses and employment. A week’s benefit in respect of one unemployment stamp was also sought.
Mr O’Donovan promised that the views of the deputation would be placed before the Minister without delay . . .
Between two and three hundred people, representing the unemployed of the urban area of Athy, headed by bands, marched to the Urban Council Room last night and demanded to have their grievances heard. The crowd gathered on the square immediately outside the council room, and the sounds of cheering and the beating of drums were plainly heard inside, where the housing committee were at work considering tenders.
The chairman decided to leave over the ordinary business while they heard the men’s grievances, and four representatives of the unemployed were admitted.
The spokesman of the deputation, John Day, said that there were between two and three hundred unemployed outside, and they wanted to know what the Urban Council was going to do for them. The council had been putting off the building of cottages, while the workers were clamouring for employment. The home assistance was very little use; he had only 7s. a week to keep a wife and two children.
Patrick Nolan, who stated that he represented the single men, said he had been knocked off work on the roads to make a vacancy for a married man. He could get no home assistance because he was single and he would get no work because he was not married.
The chairman (P Dooley) said the council was not holding up the housing scheme; they had done their best to get it through quickly and they hoped now to have work started in a fortnight. The council had also been successful in getting a grant of £1,500 for road work which they hoped would be released in a couple of weeks’ time. He promised that the question of an assistance committee to help the home assistance officer would be brought to the notice of the Board of Health.
The men then withdrew, stating they would convey that message to their comrades outside . . .
“We want work” was the slogan of a large number of members of the newly-formed Listowel Branch of the Workers’ Union, who marched four deep through Listowel on Monday night. It was their object to march to the Urban Council chambers, where they would demand £2 5s. per week in connection with the new sewerage and housing scheme, instead of 36s., as previously arranged by the union. A deputation consisting of Messrs M Malone, Thomas Casey and Michael Kelly, attended a meeting of the Clare Board of Health, and, failing the provision of work for a number of unemployed men in the Broadford district, asked that they be given home assistance.
Mr Malone said the deputation spoke on behalf of about 70 people. The men were hungry, and they would not look for relief from the board only the cupboard was empty.
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