Monto

Monto was the nickname for the one-time red light district in the northeast of Dublin, Ireland.

Dublin was reputed to have the biggest red light district in Europe and its profits were aided by the enormous number of British Army garrisons in the city, notably the Royal Barracks (later Collins Barracks and now one of the locations of the National Museum of Ireland).

[1] According to legend, King Edward VII of the United Kingdom lost his virginity in the Monto while still the Prince of Wales.

Later, in the 1880s, the Prince, accompanied by his wife Princess Alexandra and their son Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence strolled unrecognised through the area, having slipped away from their bodyguards and walked through Dublin.

In Kevin Kearns' oral history collection Dublin Tenement Life, he comments that many of the prostitutes in the Monto were, like Philomena Lee, unwed mothers who had been disowned both by their families and by their babies' fathers.

According to Kearns, "By all accounts, the girls were typically young, attractive, and known for their generosity, especially to slum children".

[3] In an interview with Kearns, Mary Corbally, who grew up in a tenement on Corporation Street during the 1920s, recalled, "I don't feel any shame in coming from the Monto, but the reputation was there cause of the girls.

If they seen a kid running around in his bare feet they'd bring him into Brett's and buy him a pair of runners...

"[4] Billy Dunleavy, who grew up in the Monto before, during, and after the Irish War of Independence, later recalled, "It was a hard life for them girls.

Many of the kip-houses also illegally sold drink which made it easier to part a man from his money... Several madams became quite wealthy, wore expensive jewels, owned cars, and even sent their children off to prestigious schools abroad.

"[6] According to Billy Dunleavy, however, "But when they got the money off the men and didn't give it up to the madams they took the clothes off them - stripped!

You wouldn't hear them cursing and they might give the boy a penny or tuppence to buy sweets.

"[7] In an interview with Kearns, Johnny Campbell, who had been a legendary Monto brawler in his youth, "Now there were also mobs fighting against one another, animal gangs.

Now there could be a big melee on a Saturday night near Paddy Clare's or Jack Maher's (pubs).

They'd have razor blades and iron bars and knuckle-dusters and flick knives and hooks off the bales for the dock work.

And the kip-houses had bouncers - whore's bullies we called them - and if a man didn't give up his money he'd get a hiding.

Now Phil Shanahan, he owned a pub over there on the corner, he was a great man and he used to hide them after they'd been out on a job.

Devane launched a campaign, in defiance of the Crypto-Calvinist, or Jansenistic view by the Archbishop of Dublin and the middle class that fallen women should just be written off as whores, to empty the "kip-houses" and clean up The Monto.

Similarly to St. Vitalis of Gaza, Duff and the Legion of Mary began a covert spiritual outreach to the "unfortunate girls" in the Monto and established the Sancta Maria hostel, a safe house for the growing number of prostitutes whom they helped to run away from their "kip keepers" and start a new life.

[11][12][13] Duff also received the co-operation of the first Catholic Commissioner of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, former Irish Army General W.R.E.

The campaign ended with 120 arrests and Gen. Murphy announced the closure of all the remaining kip-houses following a DMP raid on 12 March 1925.

"[9] These kip-houses included the "Cozy Kitchen" on North King Street and "Cafe Continental" on Bolton Street, both of which were run by legendary Dublin madam Dolly Fawcett and remained open, enabled by corruption in the Garda Síochána, well into the 1950s.

[6] According to Northside resident Noelle Hughes, who knew Dolly Fawcett in her seventies, "The Cozy Kitchen" was located in the basement of a tenement house at 2 North King Street and was run by Dolly's son Stephen Fawcett until it closed down in 1957.

[14] According to retired Guard Paddy Casey, the Cafe Continental was located next to the Bolton Street Technical School.