Open [36.0 MB]

LIFE OP CHARLES HALIDAT. XXXV
In the course of his inquiries respecting the cleanliness
and health of the poor, he elicited the remarkable fact
that within the previous five or six years (he was writing
in 184-4), the poor of Kingstown and Dunleary, although
residing on the sea shore, had been deprived of the means
of preserving health and promoting cleanliness which
sea bathing afforded.
Before the Kingstown railway was carried across the On the taking
harbour, the strand was open to the public, and under O f the bathing
the high cliffs which extended from Salthill to the west
pier there were small bays or inlets completely sheltered P r
and secluded, where the women and children of the town
and surrounding country freely bathed. But as it was
deemed necessary for the extension of the railway that it
should pass between these cliffs and the sea, the cliffs were
levelled and formed into a railway embankment across
the strand, and the poor were excluded from the benefit
of those prescriptive rights which they had previously
enjoyed unquestioned. Noblemen and gentlemen, whose
seaward boundaries this railway traversed, protected their
own rights, and for them the Dublin and Kingstown Rail-
way Company were compelled to erect splendid baths and
other costly works. Commodious baths were also erected
for those who paid for using them ;
but for those who were
unable to pay for the poor of Kingstown and the surround-
ing country no accommodation whatever had been provided
in lieu of that of which they were deprived. 1 For
three whole years he laboured to obtain for the poor the
restoration of their rights, by private addresses to the rail-
way directors and others, but failing in his efforts, he had
recourse to the press. This publication, issued in 1847, is
entitled, " An Appeal to His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant
on behalf of the Labouring Classes," and in this he sets
id, pp, 7, 8. is no publisher's
name. It was
It was anonymous and intended printed by P. D. Hardy and Son,
only for private circulation. There Dublin. 8vo., pp. 54.
c 2