27-04-2025
Serenity on the scrapheap and a history lesson over hot dogs — tales from my day by the docks
It might not be everyone's idea of the good life, but, for us, this was honest toil, far from the cares of the tormented world.
It was that sunny week in Dublin in early April and we were down in Hammond Lane, probably one of the most unglamorous locations in the city. As he undid the ropes, I looked over our precious cargo that would soon be consigned, literally, to the scrap heap.
There was a metal bath, a wheelbarrow without wheels, old filing cabinets, the remains of a Grant back boiler and an assortment of scrap metal packed on the back of the truck.
Gerry had been here before, many times, but it was a first for me and I found the whole process fascinating.
Hammond Lane Recycling Ltd, despite its name, is down the Pigeon House Road in the south Dublin docklands, with its headquarters in Portadown, Co Armagh. The recycling division is where metal is crushed and sorted before being loaded on to ships bound for exotic destinations around the globe.
The finality of it is almost like a funeral procession for the mundane things we take for granted in modern life
There is nothing glamorous about it, but, for us, this is the beauty of it. It's not about the money, it's about the gritty reality of where once-treasured objects often end their days. The finality of it is almost like a funeral procession for the mundane things we take for granted in modern life, everything from old washing machines to metal girders and much, much more.
The original Hammond Lane, from which the current company takes its name, is a small, nondescript strip of disused land between the Four Courts and Smithfield in central Dublin.
It is believed to be a corruption of Hangman's Lane — it was on the route from the courts to the gibbet at Oxmantown where those unfortunates who found themselves on the wrong side of the law were sentenced to swing.
I'd come across the name inscribed on the coalholes which decorate the granite pathways of Dublin's Georgian squares. If you look down, you'll see the small iron discs emblazoned with names like Hammond Lane Iron Foundry, Tonge & Taggart, Sharkey of Church Street, Windmill Lane Iron Works and so on.
The oldest of them don't carry any name but are decorated with geometric designs, before someone in the 19th century discovered it was a perfect form of advertising.
Anyway, that's all I knew about Hammond Lane until Gerry proposed we make a trip with a load of scrap metal he had accumulated. We loaded up the pickup truck and made our way carefully through the leafy lanes of the south city to the docks.
A sudden left turn and you find yourself among mountains of twisted metal, with a soundtrack of tearing and grinding. Cranes, like giant aphids with huge metal teeth, lifted and dropped tonnes of metal, sorting it from one pile to another. Others feed a huge crusher which grinds the scrap down into smaller pieces, forming a heap like a metal Sugar Loaf.
I'd always loved the scrapyard scene in Pulp Fiction and now I found myself in the real thing.
Gerry drove the truck on to a weighing scale, got the nod from the guy inside the office and then drove through the hills of twisted metal until he found the right place to dump our cargo. It was lunchtime, so we had to unload it ourselves.
Looking around, I spied a nearby mountain of crushed cars. Looking at the shapes they had been reduced to, it was hard to believe that at one time in the not-too-distant past, these vehicles had been driven out of a showroom, someone's pride and joy. Now, crushed like beer cans, they were piled on top of each other, blocking out the blue sky.
After carefully unloading the pickup, so as not to injure ourselves, we drove back to the weighing scales where the empty truck was reweighed. They subtract that from the original load and pay out on the weight of the scrap.
Gerry headed into the office to conduct the business end of the deal. I got out of the cab and watched the cranes sorting iron, steel and scrap into huge bins until Gerry returned with the stash and said: 'OK, it's time to call on Deke.'
Driving back on to the Pigeon House Road I couldn't help being reminded of that old phrase, 'Where there's muck there's brass.' In today's world, scrap metal has a price and Hammond Lane Recycling Ltd has a turnover of €66m, reporting a healthy profit of €16m last year.
Deke's, for those who don't know it, is a diner in an old container on the roundabout just off the entrance to Tom Roche's original Toll Bridge, between Ringsend and what was the Point Depot on the north quays.
I'd never been, but if you want tasty hot dogs and a little lunchtime philosophy and reminiscing, dispensed by the proprietor as he's cooking, then this is the spot.
Deke has been running the diner for 24 years and it has now become a landmark amid the sprawling container parks, where lorries are lined up outside waiting to collect and deliver cargo.
But it isn't only a truckers' spot; on the walls are photographs of various celebrities (if you'd call them that) who have dropped in at one time or another: Bertie Ahern, Michael D, Niall Quinn, Gerry Adams, Glen Hansard, even our current Taoiseach Micheál Martin, although I'd suspect he's not really a hot dog kind of guy.
'They were all here over the years, and many more,' says Deke.
Fortified with hot dogs, it was time to leave the prosaic world of scrap metal and tall tales behind
Before his present calling, he was a sailor and he's knowledgeable about the history of the docks, having, among other things, sailed on the Guinness boats, the Lady Miranda and the Lady Patricia.
One of the photographs on the wall is the last voyage of the 'Miranda' named after the wife of Lord Iveagh and later the lover of Ryanair founder, Tony Ryan.
There is no one else there that sunny afternoon and Deke is in full flight, eventually getting to the case of the Ouzel Galley, a famous ship that sailed out of Ringsend in 1695 with 50 crew and officers bound for what is Izmir in Turkey today. When it didn't return after three years, it was presumed lost and the crew declared dead.
Then, in 1700, under Captain Eoghan Massey of Waterford, it sailed back up the Liffey and into the folklore of Dublin, with disputes, crew-members' wives remarried and endless litigation about who owned its cargo. The Ouzel Galley Society was formed and a pub was named after the ship in Dame Street. A plaque commemorating the ship's adventures can still be seen on Commercial Buildings on College Green.
But with our cargo safely delivered that sunny April afternoon and fortified with Deke's hot dogs, it was time to leave the prosaic world of scrap metal and tall tales behind and with an empty pickup we sailed home to await another adventure in the lesser-known corners of Irish life.
Maybe a trip to the mart next time, but we'll be mere observers at that spectacle.
