Servants

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servants. Domestic service was always an important employer of Irish women, but particularly so from the mid‐19th century, as other opportunities for women from the labouring/small farming/working class evaporated. Such women often used service as a stopgap between other jobs, or as a way of saving money for marriage. The 19th century also saw a redefinition of domestic service, with a greater emphasis on maintaining social distance between employers and servants.

Pay and conditions varied. Servants working in a ‘big house’ had a place within a well‐defined career structure; the job of a butler, housekeeper, or cook was a highly skilled one which commanded excellent wages (particularly for men) and good working conditions. However, the majority of servants were females working on their own as ‘generals’, often alongside the woman of the house, or on farms, working inside and outside. From 1911 employers were obliged to pay national health insurance for their servants, but this was difficult to enforce. The Limerick Rural Survey carried out by Muintir na Tire (1964) revealed that up to the mid‐20th century farm servants were often not even given eating utensils. Urban servants too often had to endure appalling accommodation and inferior food.

Domestic service was enthusiastically promoted by educationalists and many shades of political opinion, including middle‐class feminists, right up to the 1950s as a morally safe occupation, and a good preparation for marriage, for working‐class females. By the 1940s, however, advertisements for servants in the Irish daily papers carry a note of desperation. The number of female domestic servants fell dramatically between 1946 and 1961 as expectations rose and alternative employment became more easily available. As late as 1956 the Commission on Emigration urged that middle‐class families be given government grants to employ servants—a recommendation which was never acted upon. While the numbers of girls taking domestic science at school, in evening classes, and at third level remained buoyant, most now hoped to find work as professional cooks in institutions, or to have these skills when they set up house for themselves.

Bibliography

Hearn, Mona , Below Stairs: Domestic Service Remembered in Dublin and beyond 1880–1922 (1993)

Caitriona Clear