The Luas is terrific, and it’s going to be absolutely brilliant (and also, frankly, a great relief) when the current building works in Dublin’s city centre are, eventually, finished and trams begin their shufti shuttle along Nassau Street and up to the Green.
Even when it’s going full throttle, however, the new improved Luas won’t be a patch on the tram system which rattled around Dublin a century ago. Begun in 1872 as a horse-drawn operation, by 1911 it was electrified, regarded as cutting edge for its time, and boasted 31 lines, with 330 trams serving all corners of the city.
James Joyce painted a vivid snapshot in chapter seven of Ulysses: "Before Nelson's Pillar trams slowed, shunted, changed trolley, started for Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Clonskea, Rathgar and Terenure, Palmerston Park and upper Rathmines, Sandymount Green, Ringsend and Sandymount Tower, Harold's Cross . . ."
Our photo, taken on Westmoreland Street, shows a line of people waiting to board the Number 14 tram – which ran to Dartry Road via Rathmines – in the spring of 1948. Either it’s a slow process or the Number 14 is particularly popular, because there’s a considerable queue of folks in overcoats, many carrying briefcases, obviously trying to get home from work.
The tram itself looks pretty grubby, although it’s cheered up somewhat by the ad for “Joy Ale” emblazoned on the front. (Look at the carriage behind: clearly, you’ll need “Andrew’s Liver Salts” if you partake of too much “Joy”).
This is one busy streetscape. On either side of the tramlines, commuters on bicycles thread their way through the traffic. In the centre of the image, a cool dude on a scooter is probably the only person out of the whole lot who is moving at a reasonable speed.
Meanwhile, on the right of the image, a line of shiny buses is poised to overtake the tram. Which, as the city expanded, is exactly what happened, and why – barely 12 months after this picture was taken – the old Dublin tramways finally rattled their last in July 1949.
Arminta Wallace
