“Three Balls, Sunday Bests & a Few Bob: The Tale of Pawnbroking in Ringsend”
The
name ‘Rosie Brassballs’ was a recognisable name to many for generations in Ringsend,
but both were affectionate names for Rosana (Rosie) and Brassballs a reference
to the three brass or gold balls that hung outside to denote a pawnbrokers
shop. For many locals one important
pawnbroker in the heart of Ringsend was located at 9 Fitzwilliam Street.
For
many families in Ringsend who depended on uncertain work such as fishing,
hobbling or ship building, pawning was not a last resort but an ordinary weekly
routine. Families without savings would pawn their "Sunday best"
clothes or blankets on Monday morning for emergency food and cash, then redeem
them on Saturday evening using wages to wear to Mass. The number of licensed
pawn shops in Dublin surged from just 10 in 1786 to 76 by 1870, and over 300
across Ireland by the mid-1860s, alongside numerous illegal back-street
operators.
9
Fitzwilliam Street was built 1871 by the Pembroke Estate and became the home of
Edward Smyth, Smyth sold the lease on the building and moved to Edinburgh where
he died. The building was purchased by William Tunney who also owned a pub
around the corner on Bridge Street and would later build Tunney Cottages at the
end of Fitzwilliam Street where the Ringsend Medical centre is today. Number 9
would be sold once again after Tunney died in 1912.
He
had leased the lower floor of the premises to Matthew Mulvany, a pawnbroker
from Erne Street. Mulvany was married to Rosanna (nee Murphy) and one of their
children was Matthew Alphonsios who was born in 1868. He would take over the
business on Erne Street from his father. Matthew senior, who had just opened a second
pawnbroker shop in Ringsend, died on June 27th, 1884 aged just
fifty, having lost his wife Rosanna just a year earlier.
Matthew
Junior was married to Mary Ellen and it was their first born, Rosana Mulvany,
who would run the pawnbroking business in Ringsend. Rosana was one of four children,
and she would marry fellow Ringsender Joseph Nelson, who owned the shop on
Bridge Street. The Nelson family was also married into the local publican
family The North’s.
By
the turn of the twentieth century, another well-known pawnbroker William
Delaney had taken over the Mulvany business in Ringsend. William’s father
Richard was a pawnbroker with shops on Meath Street and Pembroke Street.
William himself had numerous pawn shops including those located at 85 the Coombe
and 19 New Street. Tragically his two brothers Frank and Patrick drowned in a
Rathgar quarry in 1906. By the inauguration of the Irish Free State, Mrs Mary
Delaney was the licensed pawnbroker in Ringsend. In 1923 the shop made the
front page of the newspapers when three gunmen entered the shop and robbed it.
In
1933 Gertrude Mary Silke from Monkstown places ads in the newspapers stating
her intention under the Money Lenders Act 1933 that she would be taking on the
business of Mary Delaney at 9 Fitzwilliam Street. Silke’s husband William died
in 1941, while Gertrude died in November 1974.
By the Second World War in 1943, the licenced pawnbroker was Martin Hutchinson. In 1946, the broker was broken into and a quantity of clothes robbed but detectives arrested and charged a number of men and one of their wives who was just 16 years old. Her husband received a four-year sentence when convicted. In January 1948, there was another break in at Hutchinsons, thieves attempting access through the top floor through bathroom but main shop heavily fortified. In 1948, Joseph Rafter took over the business now known as the Ringsend Money Office. Rafter also had sale and auctioneer showrooms in Capel Street.
By the late sixties the pawnbroker in Ringsend was closed and a new business moved into 9 Fitzwilliam Street. The Rafter family had moved their pawnbroking across the River Liffey to Gardiner Street.
And so, after almost a century of pawning everything from blankets to Sunday best, the brass balls finally stopped swinging at 9 Fitzwilliam Street. The shop had witnessed hard times, family tragedies, daring robberies and enough changes of ownership to keep any historian reaching for the pawn ticket. For generations, however, it had been more than a place to raise a few shillings—it was part of the weekly rhythm of Ringsend life. By the late 1960s the pawnbroker was gone, and with it went one of the neighbourhood’s most familiar institutions. Rosie Brassballs may have disappeared, but her name—and those famous three balls—remain part of Ringsend folklore.
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