Published on November 26th, 1955, photograph by Dermot Barry
IT'S A GEM of a picture - and a bit of a mystery. 'Jimmy the Queen's Bridge Tow Horse has a snack in between his work as a tow horse,' reads the caption on the back. 'His hours are 8am to 5pm and he is looked after by George Cairns.' The rest, sadly, is silence. George Cairns, his expression stoic, gazes out over the river as Jimmy munches his way through another lunchtime.
If the caption is correct, the location is the oldest and still one of the most attractive of the Liffey bridges, its elliptical arches linking Queen Street to Bridgefoot Street.
Built in 1763 and named in honour of the wife of George III, Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg, it was renamed Queen Maev Bridge in 1913 in honour of the legendary queen of Connacht.
In 1942 the bridge was renamed the Mellows Bridge, after Liam Mellows, a republican who was executed during the Civil War.
None of which, however, throws any light on Jimmy the Tow Horse and his minder George Cairns. What kind of work were they doing? Who was George Cairns? And how much longer did they last, these relics of the rare auld times, on Dublin streets, which were already becoming strangers to horse-drawn traffic? The cars in the background, lined up in a menacing row, are indicative of the city's future, as surely as the pair in the foreground are tied to its past.
Still, it's a hugely evocative photo: the horse's enormous hooves, the powerful contraption on its back, the light reflected in the puddles on the cobblestones of the street. And though the tow horses of Dublin are gone, they're not forgotten. On the contrary, they're remembered with shameless sentimentality in the famous Guinness ad which runs on TV every Christmas; yes, the one with the softly falling Joycean snow, the fox, and the tow horses.
Watch it on YouTube, and see if - even now, with the season of goodwill safely over for another year - it doesn't make you well up. And if you can tell us anything about George and Jimmy, get in touch. Arminta Wallace
