In the late 19th Century, Irish nationalists, mostly Catholics, took control of Dublin municipality. Protestant inhabitants moved out of the city to new suburbs, such as Rathgar, in order to avoid the nationalists. Incidentally, a defining characteristic of these newly developed outskirts was an elegant Victorian architecture which has partially survived to this day.

Unemployment had always been a problem in Dublin because the city was never fully influenced by the Industrial Revolution. The most stable employment was ensured by the Guinness brewery and Jameson Distillery. Working-class suburbs spread into the Inchicore and Kilmainham districts. At the turn of the century, Dublin's population exceeded 400,000, but the level of poverty rose parallel to the number of people, adding to the already large number of tenements, which were mentioned in literature by James Joyce and other prominent writers. The infamous Monto of Dublin was the largest 'red light district' of the British Empire, which closed in the 1920s.

In 1913, Dublin experienced the most severe and significant industrial dispute in Ireland's history, known as the 'Dublin Lockout', where some 25,000 workers and 300 employers took to the streets of Dublin protesting the workers' right to unionise. Militant trade unionist James Larkin had established the Irish Transport and General Worker's Union which began to vie for wage increases. The owner of the Dublin Tram Company, another major employer in the city, reacted by firing members of the union. In turn, the said workers were either 'locked out' or on strike within a month, eventually being pressed to return to work.