Analysis: One thing which has not changed over the last 80 years is the persistence of the country's student accommodation problem
'Increasing costs, in which the cost of accommodation at present forms a large and seemingly uncontrollable factor, are steadily undermining the democratic basis of higher education in Ireland'. Few would argue the fact that current housing challenges for third level students are acute. However, they might be surprised to learn that this is not a quote from the Union of Students in Ireland current campaign, but from an article which appeared in the Nationalist and Leinster Times in October 1948.
Last week in Dáil Éireann, questions were raised concerning funding for student accommodation beds, with an assertion that students were missing out on third level education due to the price of accommodation. Similar arguments were being made 80 years ago. Clearly, despite an exponential growth in both the number of third level students in Ireland and the locations offering courses to them, one thing which has not changed is the persistence of the student housing problem.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Today with Claire Byrne, the annual scramble for student accomodation has begun
Student accommodation options in the 1940s were not that different from today. A limited amount of on-site residential accommodation was available in Trinity College, while purpose-built accommodation took the form of hostels run by religious orders like the Jesuit-run Hatch Hall, rather than today’s ‘student villages’. This was still heavily rule-bound and generally more costly than private rental, or ‘digs’. Although sometimes the term ‘student digs’ was used to refer to a flat or bedsit, it more typically referred to lodging with a landlady. For young single people, especially those coming from the countryside, lodging and boarding was a way of life.
Then, as now, third level students were subject to the vagaries of the private rented market, invariably positioned at the bottom of the pile and considered less desirable tenants than full-time workers with deeper pockets. In the period immediately following World War II, students found themselves competing directly with tourists for accommodation. The unprecedented tourist boom, largely from English holidaymakers escaping ongoing rationing at home, made it difficult for students in Belfast and more especially in Dublin to secure accommodation. Landladies who previously provided student digs were instead choosing to accommodate tourists who could pay more money.
While the situation in Cork and Galway was less extreme, student representative groups across the country called for adequate, purpose-built accommodation to be provided by every university. The few available halls of residence, or hostels, were generally booked up long in advance. In 1946, university authorities appealed to all well-disposed Dubliners who might have a room to spare to consider making it available, as about half of the 3,000 returning students had no fixed address. Although the numbers of students have increased, this plea is still being heard almost 80 years later as a ‘quick fix’ to the student housing crisis.
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From RTÉ Nine News, a digs drive has been launched to get students housed
A geography of student areas was already evident in the 1940s. In Galway, most students lived close to the college, although an increasing shortage of digs resulted in greater numbers moving to the Salthill area. Dublin’s student area had spread from its epicentre around University College on Earlsfort Terrace towards the South Circular Road and across the canals into Rathmines and Ranelagh.
Even before the Emergency, Dublin’s Rathmines had acquired a reputation as a student area. One Irish Times writer, remarking in 1938 on the social divide between those Trinity students who were College residents and those who lived out, noted the ‘curious fact that most of those who do not live in have either homes or digs in Rathmines or one of its tributary suburbs’.
Negative stories from both sides of the student housing transaction were common. An oversupply of greasy food and limited fresh fruit and veg were issues raised by students living in Galway digs in the 1940s. More seriously, unsatisfactory accommodation was held to hasten TB infection among students, which was all the more problematic given the absence of student health services.
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From RTÉ Archives, Sinéad Crowley reports for RTÉ News in 1999 on a student protest in Dublin to highlight the lack of accommodation
For landladies, the poor reputation of student lodgers was a common refrain, with fears of damaged furniture and worse. Tales were told of the ‘young men’ who delighted in disassembling their bicycles on white bedcovers, wiping their razor blades on the best towels, and burning holes in the lino by carelessly dropping lighted matches and cigarette ends.
Over time, female students gained an even worse reputation. In the 1950s, a series of letters from ‘heart scalded’ landladies who would ‘never again take girls to stay with them’ graced the pages of the newspapers, referring to ink stains on the carpets, burnt blankets and counterpanes, and stockings and underclothes dribbling pools of water all over the bathroom floor. Although some ‘girls’ were tidy and considerate, it was suggested that others cleaned their shoes with the bedclothes. A more unusual case was that of a landlady who, upon hearing that her prospective lodger was a medical student, ejected him on the spot, on the basis that she would not have dead men’s bones brought into her house!
By the 1950s, the pressure on housing eased and students benefited from changing economic circumstances and demographic patterns, a pattern which was replicated following the 2008 crash. In both cases, rents fell and the pressure on accommodation eased. In the mid-1950s, this was in part because of an increase in new house building and the subdivision of older houses into flats which were becoming a more popular option for students. High levels of emigration were also a factor in reducing the housing demand. But this reprieve was short-lived, and shortfalls in accommodation soon became an issue once again.
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From RTÉ Archives, Brian O'Connell reports for RTÉ News in 1988 on plans by UCD to build student residential accommodation at its Belfield campus
One of the biggest contrasts between present-day third level education and the 1950s is in the composition of the student body. 70 years ago, there was a substantial gender imbalance, with about three times as many men as women undertaking university studies, and their housing needs were significantly different. Women students were more likely to be normally resident in Dublin and therefore did not need to seek accommodation, while many ‘from the provinces’ arranged to live with relatives in the city, leaving only a small number to search for ‘digs’. Some of these availed of the 200 or so hostel places that were available for female students, but increasingly as the 1950s progressed small groups of ‘girls’ opted to self-cater in flats.
By contrast, the majority of the male non-resident student population opted for full board and lodging, most of them in ‘digs’. Two new hostels for male students also opened in Dublin in the 1950s. Nullamore House in Milltown provided accommodation for 50 Roman Catholic men when it opened in 1955, while the former Hotel MacDermott on Harcourt Street was repurposed as Koinonia House, sponsored by the Church of Ireland, the Methodist church and the Presbyterian church.
By the 1960s, growing numbers of third level students were increasingly putting pressure on available accommodation, with inevitable economic consequences. Charges for digs doubled in the decade to December 1965, while the universities also struggled to cope with the increasing demand for places. Every autumn, newspapers reported on the seasonal quest for student accommodation, as it became increasingly difficult to find adequate, reasonably-priced ‘digs’.
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From RTE Radio 1's Drivetime, USI's Colette Power on student accommodation shortage
The problem had serious financial, social and educational implications. With UCD's move to Belfield in the 1960s, the traditional student digs for UCD students were no longer as readily accessible and travel costs became an additional factor. Growing student numbers at Trinity College also raised concerns, as it feared the loss of its character as a ‘residential college’ and undertook fundraising for the expansion of its Trinity Hall accommodation. Flat-shares became more popular in the 1960s but, although the popularity of ‘digs’ began to fall, as late as the year 2000 about one in 10 students lived in digs.
Student accommodation is a perennial problem in Ireland and so too are some of the proposed solutions. In a Dáil reply last week, Minister of State at the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Niall Collins drew attention to the availability of the 'rent a room' tax relief scheme (first introduced in 2001) as part of the solution to the student accommodation crisis.
In the past 10 years, there has been something of a return to the digs culture, as students are priced out of the broader rental market and wish to avoid the time and cost incurred in commuting. To those potential landladies and landlords considering availing of the scheme, clear ‘ground rules’ are essential. As one landlady in 1953 colourfully described it, the disadvantages of providing digs outweighed the financial rewards. ‘You can’t sleep with the girls running up and down, letting their friends in and out. I thought they’d help me to keep the wolf from the door – but every wolf in the district comes into our one sittingroom at night – and snarls at me if I dare to enter!’
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
