Very few people know what a donnybrook is... Its a brawl. But in one small town in eastern Ontario its an auction sale.
The Warkworth Donnybrook is a huge auction sale that's held for the benefit of the entire community.
The etymology of the word 'donnybrook' is interesting - its name derived from a place called Donnybrook, a suburb of Dublin, which was the site of a notoriously disorderly annual fair.
Weeks before the annual event, the Warkworth Community Service Club spreads the word and encourages residents of the town and surrounding area to donate goods they no longer want or need * but still in good working order! The crew won't accept rubber tires or old fridges or air conditioners - nothing with freon.
After 55 years pretty much everyone knows the drill,
Most farm families donate merchandise after spring cleaning barns and cottages. When cleaning their houses and milk parlours, farm properties etc locals make two large piles – one for the dump and the other for the Donnybrook.
Members of the service club drive their trucks around and pick up the material that people leave curbside on a particular night - or more rural participants can drop off material that same night at the arena.
I'm always surprised by the quality of the merchandise for sale in the Donnybrook auction. There are treasures here for big city antiques pickers, local collectors and historians. The old clock is certainly attractive to me, and the coloured glassware would look great in any kitchen or residential sunrooms. The vintage electronics below harkens back to a time before Internet technologies or it staff, back when even a simpleton could broadcast over state-of-the-art mass communication systems. This is a farm community with good honest junk to sell.
Saturday June 18th 2011 was a hot day and a hot night in the town of Warkworth Ontario. The 55th Annual Warkworth Donnybrook Auction Sale packed the Fair Grounds with bargains and bargain hunters of every description. The material is collected in mass donations, and then sold at auction in the community center.
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