Dublin Artisans' Dwellings Company known as DADC was a semi-philanthropic private enterprise established to build better quality housing in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

History

The Dublin Artisans' Dwellings Company (DADC) was founded in June 1876 in response to the shortage of suitable housing for the working class in Dublin at affordable rents. It specifically aimed to build housing for those in full-time employment in artisan occupations and other trades. The founders of the DADC were Quaker and

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

businessmen, including the

Guinness family The Guinness family is an extensive Irish family known for its accomplishments in brewing, banking, politics, and religious ministry. The brewing branch is particularly well known among the general public for producing the dry stout Guinnes ...

, paying our small dividends to its shareholders. Among the directors of the DADC was William Findlater. The company raised capital through selling shares and government loans. Its offices were built at 12-13 South William Street circa 1906. The DADC was most active in building during the 1880s and 1890s, initially buildings flats, but these did not prove popular. With modest funds, the DADC bought land at low cost, for example from

Dublin Corporation Dublin Corporation (), known by generations of Dubliners simply as ''The Corpo'', is the former name of the city government and its administrative organisation in Dublin since the 1100s. Significantly re-structured in 1660-1661, even more sign ...

for cost price. Their housing developments were popular, consisting of single-storey cottages and two-storey terraced houses. As a cost saving measure, a small number of housing designs were used repeatedly across different building schemes. The DADC selected their tenants, who were predominantly Protestant, with a large number of

Dublin Metropolitan Police The Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) was the police force of Dublin, Ireland, from 1836 to 1925, when it was amalgamated into the new Garda Síochána. History 19th century The Dublin city police had been subject to major reforms in 1786 and ...

and army among their tenants. Between 1879 and 1908, the company built 3,300 homes for 16,000 tenants. The rents were always considered competitively high. The DADC's building projects were placed on hold during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, and were delayed in recommencing due to later rent strikes, with 3 further developments built between 1929 and 1933. Facing competition from local authority housing, the DADC started to sell off its houses from 1961 and concentrated on investing in commercial property. The last of the houses were sold in 1979, and the company was renamed DAD Properties LTD. It was taken over by Rohan Holdings in 1984. The archive of the DADC is held in the

Irish Architectural Archive The Irish Architectural Archive was established in 1976 by Dr Edward McParland and Nicholas Robinson as the National Trust Archive. Its objective is to collect and preserve material of every kind relating to the architecture of Ireland, and ma ...

Notable developments

* Buckingham Buildings, purpose built tenements on Buckingham Street Upper (1876) *

Harold's Cross Harold's Cross () is an affluent urban village and inner suburb on the south side of Dublin, Ireland in the postal district D6W. The River Poddle runs through it, though largely in an underground culvert, and it holds a major cemetery, Mou ...

Cottages (1884) * Crampton Buildings, Temple Bar (1891)

References

{{Reflist Companies based in Dublin (city) Property companies of Ireland Companies established in 1876 Companies disestablished in 1984 1876 establishments in Ireland 1984 disestablishments in Ireland