Every city has its red light districts, its slums and its centres of crime. The ancient formula of poverty and deprivation equalling crime is easy to locate in any place where there are large communities in close proximity. In Dublin, what is now Foley Street, was once at the heart of the area known as the ‘Monto’ – Montgomery Street and Mecklenburgh Street being the real focus of activity. Recent writers such as Frank Hopkins and especially Terry Fagan, have had much to say about the rich, teeming human history there, particularly in the late Victorian and Edwardian period, when the British Army provided much of the custom for thousands of young girls who had either been attracted by the quick money, knowing the trade, or the more innocent country girls who may have been lured there by the ‘madams’ thinking they were going into domestic service.