Taxi Drivers
Inga Saffron writes on the sub culture of the Dublin taxi world
FAINT blue sky was visible through the half-open ally door as Liam Walsh pocketed the last of the coloured snooker balls and then the black. That was the the third game. It was 6.30 a.m. Hardly anything had changed in the baseement-level Cosmo's Billiard Hall in O'Connell Street during the last hour. A few card sharks, a hustler of about 14, and the tobacco smoke still lingered under the electric lights. Above, the morning was sweet now that the night's dirt had settled and the day's had not yet begun. The street cleaners were at work and the hum of the first CIE buses could be heard.
Liam and the three other taximen each pulled SOp pieces from their pockets heavy with change. One took the money to the cashier while the others headed separately for their cars. The four cabbies, friends for an hour of snooker, might do a job before going home. To Liam, this Saturday morning looked slow and tonight would be another long one, so he opted for home and bed.
It was before 8.00 p.m. when Liam and many of Dublin's night taximen began the evening's work. Liam switched on his radio as he left his north side home and called in his position: Swords Road heading into the city. The dispatcher from the Irish Taxi Co-op in Fenian Street greeted him with a job in the area. At this time of evening, people are coming into town, so radio jobs originate from the outtskirts. As the night progresses, the drivers move inwards to the city centre ranks for the crowds leaving pubs and theatres.
The radio job brought Liam into town.
He took a place on the nearest rank, in O'Connell Street, and gave his new posiition. Petrol is too dear to waste cruising. Until his number came over the radio or it was his turn on the rank, there would be nothing to do but wait.
A young crowd was out in O'Connell Street. Men in open-necked shirts and sport jackets and women in frilly cotton dresses gathered near the amusement halls and vendors dispensing ice cream 99's.
Couples strolled up the Parnell Street dance halls and down to the Grafton Street restaurants. A few hurried in the direction of the Abbey, late for the curtain rising. There were several cars ahead of Liam's. He stepped out and leaned against his taxi. He couldn't leave his radio, but he hoped another taximan would come over, someeone without a radio or on the same waveelength as him. But the rank was moving steadily and it was best to stay in the car.
Drivers are more isolated with a radio, though they depend on it for extra business. "You get so used to it, you don't hear the radio, 'cept for your number." Many drivers claim the rental, between £12 and £17.50 each week, for a radio wasn't worth it. When the radio is busy, they say, the street is too, and any addditional profit is wiped out by the cost of the extra travelling. In the early morning hours, the radio mostly gurgles unintellligibly, but it provides the majority of jobs.
Nonetheless all taximen are forced to do some cruising at that time. From their Rod Tuach cars, they observe Dublin dirtied by the night's discarded fast food wrappings and handbills. They claim that most of their passengers then are either drunk, crazy, or prostitutes. This seaminess is the basic theme of their anecdotes.
It's difficult to separate the fantasies from the true stories. In most of them, women passengers offer themselves to cabdrivers instead of paying the fare. Nicky Nuke, best known among drivers for this type of tale, told of a "mate" who "did what he shouldn't ha' done" and then his car broke down because he didn't have the money to buy petrol. "There was this one guy," claimed Bill Travers, "who picked up a broad at the Roundabout. As they're driving she puts her hands on his legs and starts playing with him. He pulls over and begins to put his hand up, and it's a bloke! He gave him a real box after being let down like that."
Stephen Daly, big-bellied and whiteehaired, retired for health' reasons last February after 35 years of taxiwork. He used to frequent a shebeen near Parnell Street called Dolly Fawcettes. There were "ladies of easy virtue" at Dolly's though "no hanky-panky went on, on the premises. i don't like to use the word 'prostitute,' said Daly. "I knew a few hundred in me time, some of the best friends I ever had.
"But drinking was the main attraction I for me. You could be a heavy drinker in those times. There wasn't the same traffic. You could get the best meal in town at Dolly's, but the main purpose was to serve whiskey, more water than whiskey actually. When you drank that much water, you'd be sober when you went home."
In Daly's 35 years, he saw life into the world as well as out. He Once delivered a baby on the way to the Rotunda Hospital from Raheny. As the woman left his cab on a stretcher, she said, "Thank you, Stephen." She had just realized she had known him when she was a teenager.
In the days when the B & I Liverpool boat pulled into the North Wall, Daly, like many other cabdrivers, would wait at the bustling docks for passengers. One day as his turn on the rank came, he saw his passsenger, "a big, tall, elderly lady wearing a diamond-studded watch," crossing over to his cab. "She was knocked flat against a stone wall by a speeding lorry. I thought: she was stone dead, but a policeman, Mick Lane, said she only fainted. I made for the. Jervis Street Hospital and she was stone dead alright. That diamond watch would have solved a lot of problems then, but."
After giving a Franciscan a hand with the last rites-"Me an atheist and she a Protestant from the North ... He said it couldn't hurt." - Daly was sent over to the Carriage Office with the watch. His reward? The tag of The Ladykiller.
THE long, unsocial hours Dublin's 1800 taximen must work to earn a living keep them apart from the rest of the working world. Even most day drivers work part of the evening. Liam, 32, sleeps well into the afternoon after a night's work. When he gets tip, his wife Mary has dinner ready for them and their two daughters. The family has tea together before He leaves. He's on the street before 8.00 p.m. though inany night drivers start earlier, and keeps going until jobs peter out around 5.00 a.m. He takes Tuesday night off. On slow weeknights, Liam breaks for an hour to practice Kung Fu at a local gym. It is rare for Illiximen to get any exercise. In the morning, he may go to Gig's Place, an all-night cafe in South Richmond Street that taxidrivers frequent, or play billards.
The irregular hours are something the wives and families of taximen try to get used to. After nine years of marriage, Mary Walsh doesn't mind the evenings alone. She remembered the first night after their honeymoon when Liam went to work. She was all alone in a new house and couldn't stop crying. Liam left her crying finally and when he got back in the morning, she was still crying. But now, with her kids and housework, Liam's hours suit her.
Liam knew what a taximan's life would be when he started driving ten years ago. His father was a cabdriver and four of his brothers now drive. Though two brothers live on the same street, they don't see much of each other during working hours or time off, unless they run into each other at Gig's or Cosmo's.
Twenty years ago, taxi families dominated the trade. One family would have "rights" to a rank. Wherever a job took them, they would return to the family rank. Radio cabs hadn't become popular yet. Local residents used cabs for weddings, funerals, and emergencies. A driver heading back to his home rank knew there might be relatives, his kids, and perhaps some neighbours waiting at the rank.
Today Dublin is "more taxi conscious.
People use cabs for daily transport. Because petrol is So costly and the traffic restricting, it is impossible to work a single rank. Taxi families are fewer now and their members work alone.
The next generation of taximen is likely to be without even these family ties. Greater social mobility allows taximen to expect "better" jobs for their children. Michael Greville, who left a meat wholesalling job in order to drive a taxi, said, "I told my boy, eleven, that it's hard to get work these days and the car is there when you come to the edge." His son replied, "Yeah dad, as a last resort."
By 4.00 a.rn., jobs are few. The long summer dawn seems to slow time. A driver wandering through the early morning abyss will often confuse a lamppost or mailbox with a person hailing a cab. Lam has a recurring dream that takes place in these hours: he has to pick up passengers while on a pushbike.
ON a recent early Saturday morning, the cloudy sky was lit grey. It was harder to think a lamppost a person and easier to see how few people there were on the street. These slow periods are when taximen can seek friendships with each other.
Taximen were breaking for Gig's, The Manhattan, Nite Bite, and TC. There were a cluster of cabs outside Gig's when Liam pulled in.
Two of Liam's brothers and more than a dozen other taximen, as well as hungry refugees from the discos were at Gig's. Gig's is no dive. The patrons, dim lightting, and everplaying jukebox are inoffennsive. The manager makes sure that the drivers are treated right. The taximen took up two polished wood booths, and while comparing nights, they consumed plates of eggs and chips and mugs of coffee. A few ate large steaks. Though they do the same job on the same street at the same time, few knew each other by name. Except for the ones who showed up at Cosmo's later, instead of hitting the street again or going home, they wouldn't meet until the next time at Gig's.
The waitress brought over second cups of coffee which the drivers passed down the long table. A cabbie named Dominick, leaning in the corner of the booth, told about a recent encounter with a stiff. A few months back he had picked up a wellldressed man who wanted to go to the track. The guy showed him a wad of bills and asked Dominick to wait while he placed it on a sure thing, promising a big tip when he returned. Dominick waited, but when the man came back some time later, he was broke. "What else could I do? I took him home." Then, when he ran into the guy in Gig's, he made him fork over the £10.
The drivers cited blocks of flats as likely places to lose a fare when passengers proomising to run upstairs for the money, dissappear. "There's a flat on Gardiner Street," said Liam, "with a stairway leading out the back. Taximen must get taken there all the time."
"Hardly anyone calls the police on a stiff," explained Dominick. "What's a quid?" Assaults are another story. Older drivers are most vulnerable to the increassing number of attackers and say the violence is why many have changed from night to day work.
The young drivers" at Gig's do~ntl consider switching to days. "I couldn't drive in the daytime," said Liam. "The heat in the car and the traffic are unbearable. "
Taximen do a lot of waiting. If taxiwork ' didn't involve so much waiting time-e some drivers claimed it totaled four hours a night-a taxidriver could easily make a living within an eight hour shift. Instead, the average taximan works up to 12 hours a shift, between six or seven days a week. Liam, whose debts are less than most drivers, brings home £50 for 55 hours work. Another taximan might be likely to work 80 hours and bring home £40. With costly repairs frequent on the used cars taximen must buy, many talk about "negative weeks."
"I've never been in credit to my bank," said Joe Herron, who drives a white Mercedes without a radio. He just coughed up £120" for a surprise gearbox job, lost five days work because of it, and I then paid £117 for a valve job. He's about I to get a "new car," a six-year-old Mere, i but had to have the repairs done to keep ! working and be able to sell the old taxi. I "All you ever get out of taxiwork is a I week's wages. You finish one hop and you get yourself another."
Because of expenses, the average fare I hardly seems worth it sometimes. On a rainy Tuesday night, two American tourists asked Joe to take them to O'Donoghues pub. The short ride, during which the passengers pumped Joe for a weather report and Dublin's highlights, yielded 60p. The drive to the nearest rank,at St. Stephen's Green, took as much time, but there was no money in it.
AT the Irish Taxi Co-op's garage, drivers ' come to settle their accounts and I buy petrol. The line of double-parked radio cabs extends down the street While the drivers chat by the garage's single pump. An assortment of retired cabbies like The Gunner, "whose coffin is going to be carried in the back of a taxi," usually turn up as well. A frail driver, off the radio since he had a heart attack several years ago, stopped by the co-op recently. He cut his day to six hours and is "barely making a living. After years of cabdriving, years of serving the public, when you're finished, you have nothing." He pointed to the pumper, The Holy Man. "There's one lucky one. He used to drive and now he's serving petrol. Others are on bread lines.
The future isn't always quite that dismal. Most "retired" taximen find light, unskilled jobs. Daly works nights as a security guard. He is still very much a taximan.
When Dicky Hynes, another cabbie, drops by Daly's house between jobs, there is much for the two socialists to discuss. Both of them said reforms they favoured 20 years ago, were just now beginning to be realized. The Irish Taxi Federation united drivers, but there is still no taxi board, no merger of co-ops which they say duplicate services, no standard taxi, no social welfare, and no decent standard of living possible within a 40 hour week.
AT 33, Joe Herron, chairman of the Taxi Federation, doesn't expect to be.getting out of taxiwork so soon, certainly not for a nine to five routine. If he had his choice, he'd open a do-it-yourself shop. But he doesn't have his choice. For one thing, he has his "new" Merc to payoff.
It was just after midnight. Joe had been driving since lunchtime. He just spent an hour in a monotonous housing estate with a passenger who didn't know the address of her destination nor the way to get here. Twice they stopped ,at houses with lights on to ask residents directions and the use of the phone. The meter read £3.10, but Joe charged her £2.50: it wasn't her fault, he said, that she didn't have the address.
He could have done another job on the way home. If it had taken him out of his way, though, it would have been an excuse to do another. It was better to go straight home, catch some sleep, and be fresh to drive 11 hours again the next day.
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Behind the Taxi Strike
When the Minister for the Environnment, Sylvie Barrett; announced August 26 that new taxi licenses would be issued for the first time in almost two years, taxiidrivers from the Irish Taxi Federation and the National Association for Transport Employees joined in a nationwide strike. Barrett's action would have put 300 more taxis on the road.
In Dublin, where the Federation claimed the strike was 100 percent effecctive, taximen caused huge traffic tie-ups by blocking some of the city's main arteries. Cork taximen paraded their cars through the city in protest and some held hunger strikes. The taximen said they were fighting for their livelihoods.
Less than two days later, the Minister, seeing how serious the taximen were, deferred his decision for one month. The Federation agreed to nominate its representatives to the advisory Taxi Council which can now review the number of new licenses needed.
The Council, which the Minister instiituted in early August, will coordinate the various interests concerned with taxis. It includes representatives from the Departmeht for the Environment, Industry and Commerce, Justice, Board Failte, Dublin Corporation, CIE, and the taxidrivers.
The Minister expects the decision from the Council October 2. The number of new licenses could very well be the same as the Minister proposed, but at least the taxidrivers will have had some s~y in the matter.
At present, in the Supreme Court there is an appeal to a High Court ruling affirming the Minister's right to limit the issuance of a taxi licenses. But since the only legal licensing period, September 1 to 14, approached without a Supreme Court decision, the Minister, apparently unsure of his legal ground, removed the limitaation. If new licences are to be issued a special licensing period will be set from October 2 to 16.
The Federation had argued that it was unnecessary to lift the limitation before the outcome of the Supreme Court case. According to an August 28 statement by the Department for the Environment, the Federation has forfeited its voice by not selecting its Council representative soon enough. Perhaps the Minister sought to pressure the Federation by announcing the end of the limitation.
Senator Noel Mulcahy, who is working with the Federation for increased regulaation of the taxi trade said, "They were just ready to nominate their representatives when the whole thing blew up."
Despite Barrett's initial action, he, along with taximen and a National Prices Commmission report, agree "control of the number of licences current from time to time is justifiable." Dublin barely provides enough business to support its approximately 1400 full-time taxidrivers. Costs are high and drivers must work long hours. Three hundred new drivers would only make conditions worse.
In order to restrict part-timers without prohibiting taxi owners from having other incomes, the Minister has introduced a rule that taxis must ply for hire for a minimum period during the day. A taxiiman would be able to -ernploy a driver to fulfill this obligation. Not only will this be difficult to enforce and handicap night cabbies, there will still be excess taxis on the street.
Another solution would be to issue special part-time licenses, with markings visible on the cab, which would be valid only during periods when extra service was necessary.
Martin Morris, secretary of the Federaation said the public will also benefit from the limiting of taxi licenses. "As long as licenses are limited, the (taximan's) standard of living will improve as well as his standard of vehicle."
The only way for the taxi trade to be made more viable, drivers said, is for taxi work to be made more secure. Without increased regulation, one driver predicted, "we'll all be part-timers.".