Hi Tony,
All my family are from generations that came from the Dublin tenements. When they were moved to the 'suburbs' in the 1930's to a 2 up 2 down (11 of them in the family) and an outdoor toilet, they thought they were in the lap of luxury HA.
The thing is that over the years and speaking to the 'old timers', most of them loved it in the inner city. As hard as it was, everyone was in the same boat, no-one knew any different, and there was always someone close to hand to help out.
Tara