Click on the picture to see a larger version.
The cars had a high centre of gravity and could tip on corners, especially if the passenger load was uneven. Handholds, footboards and sometimes an iron bar across their laps helped prevent passengers from being hurled into space on sharp turns.
Source:
Car Stand at the Old Irish Parliament House, now Bank of Ireland. Photo by Lafayette.
Outing magazine, vol. XLV, December, 1904, p. 296.
Vance Thompson's Cab Drivers / 25
How Pat Travels / 4
There are in Dublin about 2,000 public cars. For a license the owner pays one pound and the driver, for his license, pays half-a-crown down and a shilling a year. Of course well-to-do people have cars of their own. The Dublin doctors who used to drive soberly in victorias, now cut about in cars like the rest of the world. A car costs from £40 to £55, though you may pick up one without rubber tires for thirty guineas. A deal of work goes to the making. From start to finish it takes one month to complete a car. The wood used is birch or walnut, usually American wood. The birch car stands the weather far better than the soft-grained walnut. Moreover it will take paint, and eighteen coats are laid on. The cushions are nearly always of cloth. Lancewood or hickory go into the shafts. Underneath the car there is a movable well for bags or dogs. From Dublin these cars are shipped world-over. (Cars are made, too, in Derry; but I was there of a Sunday and Derry was dead; I am of Tom Moore's opinion; said he: "To the devil I pitch a Protestant town of a Sunday!") They go to England, to India, to Johannesburg, to New York, to Chicago, to Springfield and California; the car follows the exile. It is a pretty fancy and not without a touch of sentiment. When wealth comes to the Irishman, far away from the old sod, he sends back for a bit of home discomfort to make him content. And then riding on a jaunting-car is good for the liver. Personally I like the cranky vehicle. There's a deal of fun to be got out of it. In the first place the motion of a well-balanced car is delightful; then, too, you can see well about you; and you are near the horse. So far as the horse is concerned the vehicle is a kindly one. If the car be rightly loaded, there is no weight on the nag's back. Moreover it is easy hauling, for the horse is well under his work. The Dublin jarvies are not what you would call good whips. They drive, as unladylike people say, like the divil; they cut around corners featly enough and go slashing up heart-breaking hills; but nine out of ten of them drive with a loose rein. They talk to the fare and the little horse runs on, doing the best he can and following his own dauntless will. I lay no fault upon the jarvey. The Irish horse share's Paddy'sgragh for independence. Of him, too, it may be said that he serves without servility. The jarvey – light-hearted lad, be he young or old – gains in the run of the days and average of six shillings. The fares are jolly cheap. For a "set-down" within the boundary the charge for two persons between 9 A.M. and 10 P.M. is only sixpence. By time the charges are one-and-six an hour, with an added sixpence for each succeeding half hour. Still the jarvey does fairly well. Barney, who is no better than the others, took me to his home. It was in Spring Gardens, where there are rows upon rows of neat little red-brick cottages, with gardens and stables. They rent at £200 a year. Owning his car as he does Barney pays no car-rent to anyone, and if he drives Lawler's mare, 'tis more for love than profit. Year in and year out he puts by a bit, for the "childer, God bless 'em!" are growing and will have need of education. In his smart little home, with his smart little wife, there are unluckier men than he. "If 'twere not for the fightin'," says Mrs. O'Hea, "a betther man than Barney never pulled a shirt over his head."