Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a state of failure.

1848		Mayo Constitution 31 Oct. 4/4: ‘If I stoop,’ says he to himself, ‘I’ll lose the parpendicular, an’ dish, an’ gravy, an’ all ’ll get down the banks’.
1862		N&Q 3 Ser. 8 Mar. 189/2: Can any read inform me of the origin of [...] ‘Down the banks.’ It is frequently heard in the South of Ireland [...] ‘I got down the banks for my pains,’ &c.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 116/2: Down the banks (Irish, colloquial). Failed ; e.g. ‘I got down the banks for my pains’.

2. a reprimand; thus give it/someone down the banks v., to scold.

1850		Westmeath Indep. 19 Jan. : The new arrival has the goodwill o’ the clargy — and as a matther o’ coorse, some o’ thim that have not ’ll be apt to get ‘down the banks’.
1855		Connecticut Courant (Supp.) 8 Dec. 211/2: Take ’em up for interferin’ with other people’s business. Give ’em down the banks; send ’em up ninety days.
1862		N&Q 3 Ser. 8 Mar. 189/2: Can any read inform me of the prigin of [...] ‘Down the banks.’ It is frequently heard in the South of Ireland, often in a threatening sense. ‘If he dares to do it he’ll get down the banks, I promise him’.
1884		(con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 237: He give me down the banks for not coming and telling him.
1910		P.W. Joyce Eng. As We Speak It In Ireland.
1968		(con. 1940s) J. Healy Death of an Irish Town 31: I was standing there idly listening to the Chairman giving it down the banks to Fianna Fail.
1996		coverage Ireland-Russia soccer match 27 March [RTÉ TV] We haven’t any interviews at the moment because Mick McCarthy is giving them down the banks in the dressing room [BS].
2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 105: I’m down there in the lobby with the others, arn’t I, giving this poor cunt of a night porter down the banks.

see down the chute under chute n.

(Aus.) used of something that has not worked out.

1978		Canberra Times 4 Oct. 21/2: [T]hat compact lasted only as long as it takes to pull a chain before vanishing down the gurgle-hole of history.
1979		Canberra Times 5 July 23/2: [J]ournalists and others who say that Canberra is going down the gurgler.
1980		Canberra Times 14 May 2: [headline] Just how vulnerable is our brittle technological society? SUPPOSING WE DON’T GO DOWN THE ECONOMIC GURGLE-HOLE FIRST.
1982		B. Sidney Discord within the Bar 113: I think the case is beyond all relief. I expect to be pushed down the gurgler well before the day is out.
1985		Bulletin 108 72: Recalling this period recently a minister agreed that ‘there was a feeling that we were going down the gurgler’.
1986		R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 21: Down the drain: Things have turned out for the worse. The horse has lost the race and therefore one’s money is down the drain. Sometimes expressed as ‘down the gurgler.’.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 53/2: gurgler plughole, often phr. down the gurgler ruined or lost; eg ‘There goes another bright idea down the gurgler.’.
1992		K. Lette Llama Parlour 112: Things had just gone right down the gurgler.
2002		Shacklock & Smyth Re-Making Teaching 185: If you don’t have strategies available for the things which might occur, then you’re down the gurgler.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].
2014		R. Flanagan Narrow Road to Deep North 200: That’s our four-a-side crib competition down the gurgler, Sheephead Morton said.

wasted, lost, ruined; often as go down the pan.

1943		R. Llewellyn None But the Lonely Heart 87: Down the pan, He was, proper in the dirt.
1947		J. Maclaren-Ross ‘The Dark Diceman’ in Bitten by the Tarantula (2005) 205: Christ almighty, another couple o’ nicker down the pan.
1985		R. Delgado Best Short Plays 88: You put doubt in the back of your mind, and eventually it eats its way to the front, and next thing you know your commitment goes right down the shitter.
1986		F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 232: Now his credibility’s down the crapper, they’ll haul his arse back to Fleet Street.
1991		(con. 1920s) O.D. Brooks Legs 111: But everything went down the crapper about three o’clock one morning.
1997		M. Walters Echo 163: Oh great! So our reputations go down the pan while you come out smelling of roses.
1997		C. Hiaasen Lucky You 65: Fourteen million dollars down the shitter. [Ibid.] 325: It’s all down the crapper now.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 33: Keva’s sole obsession was the band, the band, the band – and even that was going down the pan.
2000		Guardian 18 Feb. 21: In one’s private life things may be going up the pan or down the chute.
2012		R.T. Brown ‘Indebted’ in C. Rhatigan and N. Bird (eds) Pulp Ink 2 [ebook] Another little hope right down the crapper.
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] ‘One wrong play and the rest of your life is down the shitter’.