PEGGY MAGUIRE and Mary Manley have drunk 250,000 cups of tea between them. They sipped their cuppas during a lifetime of selling fruit and veg on Dublin's Moore Street.
The quantity was worked out scientifically. Well, sort of. The two women have drunk about 10 cups a day since they started trading on Moore Street as children. Peggy is now 70 and Mary 69, so 10 cups a day, six days a week for so many years adds up to.
Robert Roberts, the coffee people, claim it adds up to 250,000 cups.
And if it does they have made their contribution to Ireland's reputation as the biggest tea-drinking country in the world after India. In Britain more coffee is drunk than tea but in Ireland, five cups of tea are drunk for every two of coffee.
The two Moore Street traders were joined yesterday by the comic duo Grannyzone to reintroduce an old Dublin brand - Capital Tea.
On a freezing morning, shoppers and passers-by on Moore Street received tea in plastic cups (and a box for everyone in the audience) while they watched the two traders and the two comedians (aka Daisy Dunne and Maisie O'Reilly) give their rendition of Molly Malone.
Peggy, a daughter-in-law of the renowned Rosie, Queen of Moor Street, likes the tea she is promoting.
"It's grand. We used to have it years ago. You could get it in 4 oz and 1/2lb bags."
Mary remembers even further back. "During the war we used to pay half-a-crown for an ounce of tea. Back then, there weren't many cafes around, and we couldn't afford the ones that were there, so I used to be sent down with a `bagging can' full of tea for all the traders," she says. "You'd often prefer a cup of tea to a bit of dinner, it would be that cold out here."
"You'd be standing on a box with the backside freezing off you and nobody buying anything," adds leggy. "You'd send down for a cup of tea and as soon as you took a sip, it would get busy."
But now things are not so busy. "Moore Street, it's gone," Peggy says. "People, don't want it any more. We used to be up at 7 a.m. and work all day, six days a week. The young ones don't want to do that any more." She works a few days a week now. Mary has retired to look after her grandchildren. They still drink their tea. "Nothing like it," says Mary. But not quite 10 cups a day.
