The Hackney Carriage in Cork: Vehicle of a Victorian Irish City 1854–1902

Abstract

Much has been written on the history of the railways and other transport forms in Ireland, from technological, economic, social and labour history viewpoints. However, the history of another important nineteenth-century transport form, the hackney carriage, remains neglected. In this article, it will be argued, using the hackney carriage business in Cork as a case study, that the hackney carriage was an important vehicle (both literal and metaphorical) in facilitating Cork’s development as a modern city with an urban centre surrounded by a suburban hinterland. Further, by examining in detail the workings of the Hackney Carriage Committee of the Cork Corporation, I will argue that the hackney carriage drivers, colloquially referred to as ginglemen or jinglemen, were for the most part a precarious working class who were policed by the Corporation, the Hackney Carriage Committee and the by-law governing their livelihoods. As such, the bye-law and the apparatus that implemented it was a form of liberal governmentality and social control over a portion of Cork’s working class.