The Irish Navvie Gangs and the Night-Watchie

Back in the day there often seemed to be a squad of itinerant Irish Navvie Gangs in Oxgangs undertaking road mending or similar.

I was always quite captivated by their lifestyles and how they sometimes even camped locally overnight in cabins on wheels.

Photograph Seona Turvey Helmer

More usually they were accommodated elsewhere and the wee night-watchman would assume his duties to oversee the area.

Photograph Seona Turvey Helmer

Other than ensuring that any equipment wasn't stolen his main responsibilities were to light and keep lit the old oil lamps to help ensure because of holes dug up in the road that cyclists and motor-cyclists, cars, busses and lorries were aware of temporary changes to the local roads and the normal traffic flow.

Photograph Seona Turvey Helmer

The gangs were always a friendly bunch of men; joking and being humorous between themselves and with the locals were part of the tools of the trade so to speak. I recall one charming good-looking young Irish chap by the name of Kevin who befriended me and other local kids; you felt a million dollars if he asked you to fetch water from home to brew up their cups of tea which were served up in old cans with a hooked wire bent through two holes to hold the drink.

As a kid their lives on the open road flitting from town to town seemed so appealing, interesting and glamorous; the romance of an outdoor life on the road.

In the summertime during the school holidays we could stay up later than usual. Come the late evening when darkness began to fall there was a different feel to those small encampments. After performing his duties the night-watchman usually sat outside his small hut with a brazier glowing bright red and warm in the night air from the hot coals.

Allegedly when a night-watchman's hut was destroyed up at Oxgangs Bank from an explosion there was great concern in the community that the poor chap had been blown to smithereens; the police were mystified, left scratching their heads looking for clues as to the whereabouts of his remains.

Photograph, SPL

But lo and behold, the mystery was discovered shortly after when the old lad turned up to find out what all the fuss was about and what had happened to his hut; unbeknown to all bar his wife he used to return home in the early hours to the comfort of his bed.

In retrospect it was perhaps just as well as his resting place might have been elsewhere!