Ringsend is the district where the boys’ illicit day out loses its buoyant sense of escape and turns toward unease. After crossing the Liffey, the narrator and Mahony wander through its squalid streets, eat what they have bought, and make for a field near the Dodder; there the narrator notices the stranger who will interrupt their rest.

Setting and Approach

The boys reach Ringsend after spending the morning among Dublin’s quays, watching barges, a fishing fleet, and a Norwegian sailing vessel being unloaded. The river crossing carries them away from the familiar route of school and home, whose authority has seemed to recede during the outing. Their approach to the district therefore belongs to a brief imagined freedom: the city’s working waterfront gives schoolroom geography visible substance, even as the boys remain only observers of the commerce around them.

Streets and Provisioning

In Ringsend, the day has grown sultry, and musty biscuits bleach in grocers’ windows. The boys buy biscuits and chocolate, eating as they wander through the squalid streets where fishermen’s families live. Unable to find a dairy, they enter a huckster’s shop and buy a bottle of raspberry lemonade each. These small purchases supply the practical texture of the excursion, while the contrast between the boys’ roaming and the poor streets through which they pass makes their adventure inseparable from the district’s working-class setting.

The Field and the Interrupted Excursion

Refreshed by the lemonade, Mahony chases a cat down a lane, but it escapes into a wide field. Tired, the boys head for a sloping bank from which they can see the Dodder. It is too late and they are too weary to complete their plan to visit the Pigeon House, and they must be home before four lest their absence be discovered. Mahony looks regretfully at his catapult; the narrator suggests taking the train home, restoring some of his cheerfulness. As clouds obscure the sun, the boys are left with their tired thoughts and crumbs.

Narrative Significance

The field at Ringsend is both the furthest point of the boys’ escape and the place where the outing changes character. With no one else in sight, they lie on the bank without speaking. The narrator lazily chews a green stem used by girls for fortune-telling when he sees an elderly, shabby man approaching, one hand on his hip and a stick tapping the turf. The man passes, turns around after some distance, and slowly retraces his steps toward them. Ringsend thus becomes more than a destination in the route: its quiet outskirts provide the setting for the encounter that unsettles the boys’ temporary freedom.