Pub

IT WAS EFFECTIVELY DERELICT FOR MANY YEARS

A year before I took this photograph the Waxie Dargle Pub was sold and it had been unoccupied or even derelict for a number of years. The asking price was only Euro 150,000 which very low as one might have expected it to sell at Euro 800,000 or higher.

“The Waxies’ Dargle” is a traditional Irish folk song about two Dublin “aul’ wans” (ladies) discussing how to find money to go on an excursion. It is named after an annual outing to Ringsend, near Dublin city, by Dublin cobblers (waxies). It originated as a 19th-century children’s song and is now a popular pub song in Ireland.

In the 19th century, during the Summer, the gentry of Dublin would travel out to Bray and Enniskerry with their entourages and have picnics on the banks of the River Dargle. The Dargle was a popular holiday resort, and the name in Dublin slang became synonymous with “holiday resort”.

The shoe-makers and repairers in Dublin were known as waxies, because they used wax to waterproof and preserve the thread they used in stitching the shoes.Easter and Whitsun were their principal holidays, Monday being the excursion for men and Tuesday for women. The original Waxies’ Dargle was said to be part of Donnybrook Fair, but due to riotous behaviour this fair closed in 1855. In any case, the waxies’ excursions did not go all the way to Bray, but only went as far as Irishtown which is located between Ringsend and Sandymount. In imitation of the gentry, they called their outing the Waxies’ Dargle. They drove out from the city to Ringsend on flat drays, ten or a dozen to each vehicle. It cost two pence per car-load and the usual cry of the driver was “Tuppence, an’ up with yeh!”. Those who wanted a more comfortable ride could take a jaunting car from D’Olier Street for threepence.

Their destination was a favourite resort for Dubliners, a grass-covered triangle near the sea-front at Irishtown. On Summer evenings fiddlers, flautists and melodeon-players played dance music (sets, half-sets and reels) until midnight. There was a roaring trade in porter, cockles and mussels and “treacle Billy”. On Bank holidays there were boxing contests.