Our
trail starts at the “Big Tree” pub on North Street. This public house that
is owned by the Taylor Family had an all-night licence to cater for the market
gardeners who were bringing vegetables to the market in Dublin. The young people
of Swords used throw stones at the market gardeners to wake them up before they
passed the local RIC station (on the Main Street), otherwise they would be fined
for not being in proper control of their ponies and carts. Up to the 1940s,
there was a big elm tree with a trunk of about 10 feet growing in the middle of
the road. It was about 150 years old when it was knocked down because it
constituted an obstruction to the buses. Writing about Swords at the turn of the
20th century, Francis Coleman said that at the base of the tree,
“unemployed workers basked in the sun”.
Our
trail starts at the “Big Tree” pub on North Street. This public house that
is owned by the Taylor Family had an all-night licence to cater for the market
gardeners who were bringing vegetables to the market in Dublin. The young people
of Swords used throw stones at the market gardeners to wake them up before they
passed the local RIC station (on the Main Street), otherwise they would be fined
for not being in proper control of their ponies and carts. Up to the 1940s,
there was a big elm tree with a trunk of about 10 feet growing in the middle of
the road. It was about 150 years old when it was knocked down because it
constituted an obstruction to the buses. Writing about Swords at the turn of the
20th century, Francis Coleman said that at the base of the tree,
“unemployed workers basked in the sun”.