The horse came round the corner pulling a large four-wheeled cart. He was a large well-built horse, a Shire or a Clydesdale, like those in the Budweiser advertisement. The cart contained six big barrels, similar to empty oil drums.

It was Wednesday, and in our part of Ringsend, Wednesday was ‘slop’ day. Not every house had slop. It was mostly houses with large families that had a bucket of slop. The ‘slopman’ as he was known, would collect the bucket of slop and empty it into the barrels.

This man kept pigs and the slop he collected kept them happy as pigs in the proverbial muck.
Today’s ‘reduce, recycle, reuse’ is only in the halfpenny place when compared to the slopman of the 1950s and ‘60s. Potato skins, apple and orange skins, bread heals, tea leafs and dinner left-overs were all welcome to the slopman.

Sometimes during the winter when the roads were iced over, the slopman’s horse would slip and lose his footing. This would happen on inclines and especially on Ringsend Bridge.

Everyone who witnessed this happen would feel sorry for the horse. And it was painful to watch him as he tried to get up again. Sometimes the slopman would jump off and try to help the horse by pushing the cart from the side. The roads never seemed to be gritted enough.

Milk was also delivered by horse and cart. I can remember one milkman whose cart was like a chariot and it reminded me of Ben Hur and Charlton Heston. I always felt these contraptions more difficult for the horse as he had to balance the two wheeled cart as well as pull it.

Another milkman used to cycle around Ringsend with a milk churn hanging from the handlebars. This was some feat. He had a pint measure billycan into which he poured the milk. He then poured the milk into Mrs Hogan’s jug for which she gave him 6d. This was always fresh milk.

At night time you could hear the neighbours putting out the glass milk bottles and wishing each other a goodnight. These bottles were collected the next morning and replaced with full milk bottles. The scrapman used a horse and cart to collect unwanted metal such as old bed frames and rusty old bicycles. And if you gave him a lot of scrap he’d give you a bob or two in return.

The ragman however, with his horse and cart and his chant ‘toys for rags’ was the children’s favourite. ‘Toys for rags, toys for rags’ you would hear him cry as he weaved his way around the streets of Ringsend.

In exchange for a bundle of rags you would receive a bag of marbles or a windmill on a stick. This windmill spun around the faster you ran with it. Some children always got a toy as they always had old clothes to exchange. Other children rarely got anything as most clothes were handed down from brother to brother and from sister to sister.

‘Recycle, reduce, reuse’– we were miles ahead of today’s environmental lobby!

Although the above picture of Thorncastle Street is about 100 years old, the horse and cart was still a common sight well into the 1960s.