A beautifully coloured image of the 19th century Four Courts, via Ebay, showing the cab rank immediately in front of the portico.
Irish barristers loved puns, but the cab drivers could outrival them for wit: the failure of Stephen Dane QC to add a tip to his fare in the late 19th century was loudly described by his driver as ‘a mighty poor way of taking revenge for Clontarf’. The ‘Clontarf’ referred to was the Irish-Danish Battle of Clontarf in 1014, won by the Irish, and the pun was particularly apt as the location of its delivery, the Four Courts, had formed part of the actual battleground.
The story of this verbal thrashing, for which Mr Dane gave the driver a shilling, in appreciation of his wit, appeared in the Mayo Examiner of 5 November 1898, to mark the former’s appointment as County Court Judge for Mayo. Clipping (from British Newspaper Archives) below:
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