Cabra History.Com

‘I took the bottom photograph recently so as to compare it to the top photograph that my uncle, Paddy Coffey had taken many years ago. Both photographs were taken in the same location, the corner of Corporation Street (Off Talbot Street) and Purdon Street (No longer there) in Dublin’s Monto area. The Street Lamp where the men are standing on the corner is where my father and his pals used to sit in the hope that one of the men in the pub would ask them to run an errand. This errand was to inform the man’s wife that he was soon heading home from the pub and she was to have his dinner ready for him when he arrived home. The man would give my father one penny and his wife would give him a slice of bread and jam. To the right of the top photo and at the back of the pub was a small laneway known locally as “The Man Trap”. This is where Prostitutes would bring some poor unsuspecting customer to do business. Sometimes she would have two or three men waiting in the dark lane to beat him up and rob him of his money. Other times she would ask him to remove his trousers and while he was doing so she would offer to hold his coat for him, she would then run off with his coat and belongings…’