Click on the picture to see a larger version.
Some jarveys liked to show off by driving from a precarious standing position on one of the passenger footboards.
Source:
At the Opening Meet of the Meath Hounds, where Car Men are Very Much in Evidence. Photo by Lafayette.
Outing magazine, vol. XLV, December, 1904, p. 298.
Vance Thompson's Cab Drivers / 27
How Pat Travels / 6
The Jarveys' Ball ws held in a big room on the first floor of a new brick tavern in the crowded suburb of Rathmines. The name I have forgotten, but Dan Tiernan, the landlord, has dug himself deep into memory. He was a big man in a blue suit of clothes and had more brains than he could be quiet with. If he was not relating the misfortunes of Ireland, he was reciting "Fontenoy" or singing a song – and when he sang it was the black reverse of melody. Bakis, as Aristophanes informs the learned, was given to drink and prophesied in his liquor; my brave Dan Tiernan was a little like Bakis. After the eating and drinking was over for the moment (and the remains of a great deal was put on a table in a corner, for future use) Dan informed us that Ireland would be free and that it was a matter of utter indifference to him, whether he died on a battlefield or on scaffold high. As to the date of Ireland's freedom his prophecy did not speak. Barney got him below on the business of sending up the porter and we saw him no more. When the tables were pushed back, between fifty and sixty bhoys and girls stood up – a couple at a time cut out into the floor, as the fiddler struck up the "Foxhunter." The big bouncing girl was light on her feet. Her partner was a humorsome lad. And if it's dancing the jig you mean, they danced the jig. At first they shuffled slowly, working into the beat of the music; gradually they footed it quicker and quicker – "More power to ye, Larry!" "There's dancin' for ye!" "Oh, bhoys of men, where are we at all!" "Give him the elbow, Kitty, darlint!" "Bend your knees, Larry, an' kape your backbone over your heels!" "Boneyparty niver did betther!" "Bloody battle! There's a step for you! Is the feet on him at all!" "No they're not! How cud they?" "The light's lavin' me eyes, Kitty, darlint!" "Whatever she'll be ashamed of, 'tis not jig-dancing!" "That's it now, avourneen!" Gradually, they footed it quicker and quicker until the jig ended (Oh, the hoight o' glory crown us!) in a wild and marvelous double-shuffle. "Don't let the music be goin' wastin'!" Two, three; there were five couples, eight; there were a dozen, sthrikin' fire out av the flure; while they who danced not rained praise and criticism. No country's mirth is better than our own, quoth 'a! Only if our country be Ireland. How it came that the fiddler gave way to a piper I know not. The pipes, however, gave us the "Rocky Road to Dublin" and the "Humors of Glynn"; and when it was finished Barney whispered me: "Take the dacent woman that danced wid you, sor, an' give her a glass." I blushed at my lack ofsavoir-vivre. The piper came our way. In the enforced pause the humorsome lad made himself heard: Said the piper: "'Tis good, the porther. Me wind was dhry. I dhrink good luck to you an' God bless you!"
"Me name is Larry Flanagan, a native av the soil,
If ye want a day's divarshun I'll drive ye out in style.
Me car is painted red an' green an' on the well a star,
An' the pride av Dublin City is me 'Irish Jaunting Car'!"