The word ‘joyrider’ is of North American origin and became popular as a term in Britain and Ireland in the early 1910s. It was defined as a ‘ride at high speed’ and initially applied to all those who took their cars out for recreational drives. It was later used negatively to describe car owners who took non-essential rides at the time of petrol shortages during World War One.
Car Wreck in Washington D.C, 1921 (via Reddit)
During the interwar period (1918-1939), the term took on its modern connotation of a ‘fast and dangerous ride in a stolen vehicle’ . Dublin, along with London, Manchester and other large cities, started to develop a problem with joyriding in the mid 1920s. At the time, it was considered as mainly frowned-upon high-jinks and pranks as opposed to dangerous anti-social behaviour. Historian Claire Millis described it, in an Irish context, as a ‘mild enough outlet for underemployed and envious youth’. She also points to the fact that many newspapers, especially provincial ones, used ‘joyriding’ as a barely disguised euphemism for sex.
The Irish Times reported on 24 September 1923:
A Bedford two-seater motor car, belonging to Mr. Erley, Rockview, Coliemore Road, Dalkey … which had been stolen … late on Saturday night was found abandoned at Harbour Road, Dalkey yesterday morning. It was badly damaged and evidently ran against the harbour wall.
A ‘well dressed American visitor’ Christopher Harrison and a friend James Bradley, a carpenter of South Circular Road, were fined £6 in total in August 1929 for taking a car from Waterloo Road for a joyride.
21 August 1929. The Irish Times.
In September 1929, Reginald McCoy from Elinton in Dundrum was charged with stealing a motor cycle from Molesworth Street. In court, he said that he had ‘only taken it for a joyride’. He drove it to Mayor Street where he hit a pothole and damaged the machine to the extent of £10. McCoy said he willing to pay for the damage caused. (Indo, 19 Sep ’29)
Three teenagers in January 1930 robbed a Morris Cowley car worth £60 from outside an office on Middle Abbey Street and were caught in Drumcondra after going at a speed of over 45 miles per hour. Eugene Caldwell (17), Patrick Hughes (17), both of Lower Dominic Street, and Patrick Scully (16) of O’Daly Road in Drumcondra were first spotted by a Garda driving on the wrong side of the road by Sir John Rogerson’s quay. Two Garda on motor cycles gave chase and followed the stolen car around Drumcondra, Marino and Drumcondra before they managed to get in front it causing a collision. (IT, 8 Jan ’30)
Two young men – John Walshe of Reginald Street and Peter Borgan of Parnell Street – were remanded on bail in May 1930 for driving a car through Capel Street and Parliament Street in a reckless manner, injuring three children in the process. Their lawyer said the charge was the outcome of a ‘joyride’ gone wrong. (IT, 20 May ’30)
26 November 1930. The Irish Times.
By the end of 1930, the police announced that an average of three cars a day were being stolen by joy riders in Dublin city. The vast majority of which were found abandoned and undamaged twenty four hours later. Often they were found within a few miles of the city, having been driven until the petrol supply is exhausted. Interestingly The Irish Times of 26 November 1930 said that a ‘large proportion’ of the joyriders ‘are young people in good positions’ with the minority belonging to the ‘poorer classes’.
26 November 1930. The Irish Times.
The Road Traffic Bill of 1931 introduced heavy penalties and fines for joyriding but this did not act as a deterrent. In November of the following year, the Motor Correspondent of the Irish Press said:
Things have been getting worse every year so that this winter we have reached the point where ‘joyriding’ has become one of the greatest scourges of the motor community. The principal point of concentration .. is Dublin and it is very little prevalent in other cities in the Saorstat, comparatively speaking.
In October 1932, a tragedy took place on the Howth Road after Thomas Parker (115 St. Declan’s Road, Marino), a clerical officer in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs was knocked down and killed by a joyrider. A Mrs Cobbledick (42 Demense, Killister) was also struck and seriously injured. The car was stolen from outside the College of Physicians on Kildare Street by two men who fled the scene of the crash. The Evening Press offered a large award for the capture of the duo but I don’t think they were ever caught. (IT, 14 Oct ’32)
A common newspaper mention. The Irish Press, 25 Oct 1932.
After another joyriding case in the courts in October 1933, Judge Shannon said that the ‘unauthorised taking of motor cars was too common and … it was shocking that private property should be interfered with in this audacious and impudent manner’. (IT, 13 Oct ’33)
In January 1934, four university students were charged with having been in illegal possession of a car and with taking it away without the consent of the owner. The accused were Trinity medical student Florence O’Sullivan (132 Stephen’s Green); Trinity student Thomas F. Stack (179 Harold’s Cross); dental student William Donnelly (84 Lower Leeson Street) and student Desmond McDonnell (132 Stephen’s Green) who had failed his examinations. After a few drinks in Rathmines, they went to Earlsfort Terrace where they ‘borrowed’ a car to take them to a dance at Kissarne House in Castlebellingham in County Louth. Parking the car in a field about half a mile from the town, they subsequently abandoned it and returned to Dublin the following morning in another ‘borrowed’ car.
It transpired in court that the boys had also stolen an expensive overcoat and hat from two guests in the Central Hotel, Drogheda. The Judge’s first condition was that they must ‘leave Dublin (on Monday) and stay away for twelve months’. O’Sullivan and Stack were fined £30 each and Donnelly and McDonell £20 each with £5 expenses each. It can be assumed that the defendants paid up as a failure to do so would have resulted in another ‘three months imprisonment with hard labour’, plus a further three months if they failed to remain out of Dublin for the year. (IT, 22 Jan ’34)
There was an astonishing joyride chase and subsequent court case in November 1933. It all started off when Joseph Gordon (Park House, Harolds Cross) reported to the police that his car had been stolen from Drury Street. At 6pm that evening, Garda Michael Walsh on a motor cycle saw the stolen Austin ‘Seven’ on Parnell Road and gave chase all the way to Crumlin where the driver of the car tried to force the Guard into a ditch. At Milltown the Guard signaled to a member of the public (Mr. Knowles) to try to get in front of the stolen vehicle with his own car. The joyrider crashed into the right hand side of Mr. Knowles’ car, drove up onto the footpath, hit the wall of a cottage (tearing off the drivers door of his own car) and then struck the police motor-cycle. He drove on, with the police still in pursuit, and took them through Dartry, Terenure, Rathfarnham ad Donnybrook. The joyrider traveled at an average speed of between 40 and 50 miles per hour.
At Leeson Street Bridge, the joyrider managed to elude ‘his pursuers’ and succeeded in getting way. The driver of the car who helped in the pursuit (Mr. Knowles) saw the drivers face during the case and later picked him out of an identification parade. Sign-writer Frederick Scuffle (29) of 4 St. Michael’s Terrace, Blackpitts was arrested but pleaded not guilty of stealing the car. His father testified that his son was at home during the time of in the incident. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty and Mr. Scuffle was discharged! (IT, 6 Feb ’34)
8 November 1933. Joyride chase.
In May 1935, the police announced that they were still searching for the male driver, another man and two women who were involved in a joyriding accident at the corner of St. Stephen’s Green and South Great George’s Street. Two pedestrians and the two women in the car received minor injuries. The four people in the car, which had been stolen from outside the Holy Trinity Church in Rathmines, left Adeliade hospital without giving their names. (IT, 9 May ’35)
William Hutton (27 St. Benedict’s Gardens), Edward Nathan (125 Lower Dorset Street) and Brdget Hickey (33 Gloucester Street) were charged in December 1936 for stealing a car worth £300 from Prince’s Street. Five people in total were seen in the car by police in Cabra when they spotted them driving out from the city. They pursued them out as far as the race course in Ashtown where the joyriders managed to make their getaway. The car was later found wrecked by the bridge at Blanchardstown and the three out of the five culprits were later arrested. (IT, 15 Dec ’36)
11 January 1937. The Irish Times.
Two young men – Joseph O’Mara (Coulson Avenue, Rathgar) and Herbety Hegarty (Upper Ratmines Road) – were sentenced to one month’s imprisonment in April 1937 for aiding and abetting a third man called Calep (not in custody) in the theft of a motor car owned by the City Coronoer, Dr. D. A. Mac Erlean. The car was found damaged with the registration number altered with white paint. O’Mara made a statement in court that Calep called to his home in the car and took two girls for a drive in the doctor’s car. (IP, 17 April ’37)
My next piece will look at joyriding in Dublin in the 1940s and 1950s
