"The Story Behind The Real Rashers Tierney”
Of Strumpet City Fame?
Rashers Tierney, a character played by the late great actor, David Kelly in the brilliant RTE television hit TV drama “Strumpet City” set in Dublin around 1913, Lock-Out. The drama showed the squalor of

Dublin Life, the contempt to which the poor were treated by both the Wealthy, Church and State.

The character of Rashers Tierney was according to some local people in inner city was based on a local man, named "Hoyer" who lived in a one-room tenement on the top balcony of

of Corporation Buildings which housed over three hundred and eighty families. Each one living in one room measuring fourteen feet by twenty feet, enough room to fit one bed. Mattresses were stacked under beds and pulled out at night for children to sleep on.

Corporation Buildings was pulled down in 1972, and the nearby tenements of Foley Street which housed over a hundred families each one living in two-rooms. Foley Street tenements were pulled down in the 1980s.

In there time, these new houses were

considered as luxury housing. They had inside, running water and toilets and a little scullery, compared to the nearby tenements on Mabbot Street later renamed (Corporation Street), Purdon Street, Railway Street, Beaver Street. Many of these tenements were filthy overcrowded,

disease-ridden, rat-infested, teeming with malnourished children. The area was under the control of Monto's famous Madams and their pimps. In the middle of all this was ordinary decent hard-working people who had no connection to the Madams.

The new housing plan was in many ways a failure, the madams continued business as usual. It took a religious group, the Legion of Mary and it's founder Frank Duff with help from the police to eventually closed down the Red-Light district in 1925. Some

Monto Madams went on to become the pillars of society in the area.
Many people who would have lived in Corporation Buildings, up to the late 1950s would have known Hoyer. He was a neighbour, living in a room near me on the top balcony. I remember Hoyer and his dog, named "Rusty

They went everywhere together. I often met him and Rusty when coming up or going down the stairwells in Corporation Buildings. When I started to record the history of the area, his name came up lots of times. Billy Kearns, said, "Do you know about poor auld Hoyer?" "Yes, I knew

when I was a young boy." "Bet you didn't know Hoyer had two dogs, “Rusty and Trusty, now there's one for the”. "No, I didn't know that one." "Ah yet, he loved his dogs, Rusty and Trusty. He'd walked the streets with the dogs following behind him, they protected him from any

messers, at that time Dublin had its share of bozies going around the streets, like the Animal Gangs, now they wouldn't touch Hoyer, he was a gentleman, he wouldn't hurt a fly, but, fond of his few gargles. He'd get carryout's from Paddy Claire's pub on foley Foley Street

and Corporation Street and he'd go off into one of the old houses, himself and the dogs who watched over him when he slept off the few gargles."
In the around 1959,1960, with some pals, we often came across Hoyer sitting down in the basement room of one of the old
tenement houses

still standing on Railway Street, off Gardiner Street. For us the tenements, we're great hiding places for children mitching (truancy)from Rutland Street school, dubbed "The Red Brick Slaughterhouse." In the empty rooms, we could roast potatoes on an open fire. At that time, many

of the empty tenement houses still had their old fireplaces intact. We got our supply of potatoes down in Parnell Street off some of the street traders lined up along Parnell Street, selling fruit, vegetables, and fish, from different stalls. Mission completed with the potatoes,

then it was over across the road to Kennedy's Bakery. We'd slip into the yard and get some stale turnover loaves of bread off the van men. Once outside we'd scan the streets for the hated, "Daddy" (The School Inspector), all clear we'd make our way to one of the nearby empty

tenements and have a feast of stale bread and roast potatoes. Some pals and I often came across Hoyer in the tenements on Railway Street. I remember, he sat with Rusty in the corner of the basement room on a pile of straw. According to local people, the straw was provided by

friends of Hoyer's who worked in what was then called, “Dublin Corporation” (Dublin City Council). They worked in the pavement section, cementing footpaths. In those days when a footpath was cemented, workers would spread straw over the fresh cement to dry up the access water.

Any straw leftover was dropped over the railings down to Hoyer in the basement. We sat with him a few times while waiting to move off to join the boys coming home from school. It was a great cover for us to be seen walking home from school with other boys. Hoyer drank his

few bottles of "Stout" (Guinness.) He'd tell us stories of his childhood growing up.
Even so, Hoyer was down in the damp basement. He was looked after by family members. Looking back now, he seemed to have a great attachment to the last of the Georgian houses on Railway

Street as he once lived in the same tenements before moving out to what was his present flat in Corporation Buildings. Hoyer's well-known neighbour in the Railway Street tenements was moved out a bit before himself. She was the famous Monto Madam, Becky Cooper who once lived in

these same houses before been moved out in her old age into the nearby Dublin Corporation flat complex of Liberty House flats off Railway Street. Locals noted, "Becky, had a soft heart for the poor, down and out men in Monto and often gave them money to get lodgings in the

Lodging houses." This act of charity didn't wash with Legion of Mary founder Frank Duff. His Legion kept a strong presence in the area and still, today have a presence in the neighbourhood. Duff noted in his book, "Miracles on Tap." Becky Cooper

was still considered a threat to the state up till the 1940s.
(The connection with Hoyer and Strumpet City.)
According to local man, Billy Kearns, "A few people knew that, "James Plunkett Kelly, a lot of local newspaper sellers knew the writer

was a very good friend of Hoyer’s." Hoyer was a well-known character around the streets of Dublin. He sometimes parked cars in the city centre around O'Connell Street area to make an extra few shillings to keep himself going. Billy Kearns also recalled, "Hoyer went around the

streets with a lump of twine tied around his big black overcoat and Rusty and Trusty with him, but a lot of the poor down and out men had twine holding their overcoats closed."

(PART 2 OF THE STORY TO FOLLOW)