Sir, – Your article on Dublin’s disappeared public toilets brought back memories (Front page, October 8th).
I wonder does anyone remember the French style urinals that were dotted around the city up until the late 1950s or early 1960s. The one I particularly recall stood just off Lower Mount Street, beside, I think, Guinane’s Pub. Circular in design, with an overlapping panel creating an entrance, they were the last word in wrought iron elegance – apart from the less elegant whiff that surrounded them.
As a child I was often sent by my grandmother to the pub for a jug of porter, or to Keir’s tobacconists on Mount Street for snuff, with a stern warning not to avail of the facilities of the “pissoire” as she termed it, as only drunken bowsies used it. Sic transit gloria mundi! – Yours, etc,