Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. Ireland.

1857		Wheeling Daily Intelligencer 25 Dec. 3/3: ’Twas for the benefit of one Torence [...] to enable him to bring over to the States from the ‘old dart,’ his foorth cousin, a dacent lad.
1863		‘Mulvaney and O’Flanagan’ in Donnybrook-Fair Comic Songster 54: And if England should dare interfere, / Ould Ireland will have a chance again [...] Then, when the old dart is free, / Annex’ion to America we’ll plan again. [Ibid.] ‘Paddy Burke’ 65: Here I am, Paddy Burke, a true Irish Turk – / My fortune to mend, I’ve left the ould dart.
1876		Democratic Advocate (Westminster, MD) 1 July 1/5: They knew him in ‘th’ould Dart’.
1883		Milwaukee (WI) Daily Journal 29 May 4/A: Father Boylan, a typical Irishman, fresh from the Old Dart, was the next speaker.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 18 Mar. 1/1: The sons and the daughters who love the ould Dart, / And the legends bequeathed from ‘the sod’.
1895		Salt Lake Herald (UT) 8 Apr. 6/2: Luk at Morris! I’ll go bail he’s a goat. That’s phat we’d call a Welchman in the ould Dart.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 9 June 24/2: The ‘ould dart’ element finds most favor with followers of bruising struggles, and the more ‘Irish’ a pug has in his blood the more chances he gets.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 1 Jan. 4/8: Jerry McAuliffe swore to come back from the Ould Dart with a wad of nursery yarns.
1946		P.L. Soljak N.Z. 116: old dart: the old country. First used by Irish immigrants.

2. England.

1882		St Louis (MO) Globe-Democrat 22 Apr. 10: Herman Moller and Louise Bornemann, newly arrived German emigrants were married last Thursday evening. They were engaged to each other in the old ‘dart’ and travelled together across the Atlantic.
1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 9 Aug. 15/3: Will someone take Charles Hardie Buzacott by the ear and lead him back to the old dart?
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 30 July 22/2: I see how a bloke in the old dart named Shaw has wrote a play and makes a tart say ‘bloody.’ [...] I reckon this play-writer he’s over the odds.
1915		F. Garrett diary 7 June 🌐 It looks as if we are to get no more clobber from Australia. All I see now comes from the Old Dart.
1921		Truth (Brisbane) 13 Feb. 3/4: [T]hey [i.e. English war brides] might like to be back in the Old Dart, hunting about to see what else they could pick up.
1923		Truth (Wellington) 21 Apr. 6/6: Things ain’t too good in the Old Dart, choom. We was out of work an’ wantin’ a feed.
1934		T. Wood Cobbers 184: Are you from the Old Dart?
1940		E. Curry Hysterical Hist. of Aus. 42: No native shall ever know that the Old Dart even harboured so much as a petty sneak thief.
1950		(con. 1936–46) K.S. Prichard Winged Seeds (1984) 357: It means [...] that Australia’s backin’ the Old Dart with $31,500,000 worth of gold a year.
1971		F.J. Hardy Outcasts of Foolgarah (1975) 28: He’s the greatest know-all who ever migrated from the Old Dart.
1977		(con. 1941) R. Beilby Gunner 123: Look, after Dunkirk the Poms had buggerall in the Old Dart.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 9: ‘[Y]ou’ve been over in the Old Dart for some time’.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 147: Old Dart, The The Old Country, from British dialect pronounciation of ‘dirt’. Often referred to London. ANZ late C19.

3. ???

1910

Tucumcari News & Times (NM) 20 Aug. 1/1: It hung on the wall in a little German home in Shaeferville, back in the old dart thirty-five years ago.