Tales From a Taxi

Tales From a Taxi is a collection of stories taken from different taxi drivers around Dublin. These stories are a way to remind people that taxi drivers are indeed individuals, and not just a faceless medium of transportation. These men and women give an insight into what it's like to drive a taxi in Dublin City and how they are treated by the public each day.

This project is also available in print format, which features more interviews than are shown here. 

Each story is their own.

“I had a fella that was after coming out of the Fitzwilliam Card Club, the casino like. He told me he wanted to go to Sandyford. So I start heading for Sandyford, and I noticed he was real down and that, effin’ and blindin’ to himself. I said, ‘Are ya okay pal?’ Next thing he said, ‘I want to go to Dun Laoghaire’. This is at 4am in the morning. I said, ‘Where in Dun Laoghaire?’ He said, ‘Down to the water’. So, straight away then, I knew that he was trying to fuckin’ do himself in. So I was trying to talk him out of it on the way down, said, ‘Look pal, things aren’t that bad.’

‘They are pal,’ he said, ‘They are. I’m after fuckin’ losing the money for the wedding. Look, I don’t want to talk, just bring me down to the water’. So I drove down to the pier and brought him down. It was absolutely pitch dark. So I’m saying to him, ‘Look pal, it’s not worth it,’ but it didn’t matter. He walked off into the black, bleedin’ pitch dark. So I flew up to the police station, wasn’t going down the fuckin’ pier meself, it was pitch dark and he could have pushed me in, he could have been anyone, y’know. So I went in to the police station, told them where it was, where I’d been, what happened, the whole lot. He said, ‘Yeah we’ll get someone down there straight away. So I was only gone down towards Blackrock when the phone rang, and it was the cop. He said, ‘Listen we’re down at the pier, can you tell us where he was, what pier’ and things like that. So I gave them all the information and he said, ‘Look we’ll ring you back if there’s any development’.

They didn’t ring me back. So obviously they caught up to him and convinced him not to go through with it.

Or at least, I hope they did.”

“If somebody runs out on a fare, just let them go. No point in chasing them, y’know, not worth it. I know a fella who chased a guy who done a runner and slipped. Dislocated his shoulder. Gone for three months. I had a runner as well once, a young fella, in Finglas. I stopped and there was a bridge, like that one there, say, and eh, he legged it out of the car. So I beeped the horn and he looked back and I went, ‘Seeya’, and waved at him, y’know. Not worth the risk. Karma’s a bitch. Like I could chase him down an alley or something, and there’d be about twenty of his mates there, y’know, what do I do then?

‘Evening lads, just out for a run’.

Fuck that.”

“I was coming down Aston’s Quay one night. A guy stuck his hand out, I pulled in. He said ‘Would you take us down to O’Shea’s?’ I said okay. Four of them got in to the car, none of them said a word. I set out, got to O’Shea’s, and he turned around said ‘Eh we’ve changed our mind, we’re not going there’. Now they hadn’t spoken to each other, but I wasn’t thinking about this, it made no difference. Started up again, got up towards Christ Church and then they started speaking and then I knew I was in trouble.

They were travellers.  They were out of their heads. Not on drink; on drugs. When we got as far as Hollingsworth in Templeogue, there’s a laneway beside it. Your man said to me ‘stop here’. I stopped, and three of them went down the laneway for a jimmy. And I said to the other guy, I said, ‘You might as well go down with them,’ I said, ‘We won’t be stopping again’. And he said ‘If I did, you’d drive off’. Which I would have. But he didn’t get out anyway, so.

They directed me up to Jobstown and they directed me in to a cul de sac. It was €26.65. The guy in the front seat got out of the car, and I said ‘That’s €26.65.’ And the other fella said, ‘You’re taking us to Celbridge.’ I said, ‘I’m not taking yous to Celbridge’. So, I got a couple of smacks in the back of the head, ‘You’re taking us to Celbridge’. So, what happened then, the guy in the middle seat jumped over the seat into the front, and he had a five minute fight with the guy on the outside seat over who was getting in the front seat.

And I was terrified, to be honest. It was the first time in my life that I ever knew what fear was. They were out of their heads on either coke or whatever and they eventually sorted it out, now they were roaring like bull elephants, and the doors of the car were open. And then I got another dig when they had sorted this out and told me to take them to Celbridge. So on the way out of Jobstown, what’s coming towards me? A Garda car.

I flashed the lights, put on the hazards, pulled in, they stopped and a female guard got out of the car and came over and said, ‘Are you okay?’ And I said, ‘Get them out of my car’. I’m quite serious when I tell ya that I never knew what fear was until that night. I’d never been afraid of anything in my life. I felt that if I’d gone out to Celbridge, or even started out towards Celbridge, they’d have either taken the car off me, I’d have got a kicking anyway, or I could possibly have gotten killed.

The female guard told me that a woman in Jobstown had heard them fighting in the taxi and rang Tallaght Garda Station and told them that a taxi driver was being attacked.

I owe that woman my life, and I’ll never meet her.”