Last cigarette made in town

June 2006

AT precisely 1.45 p.m. on Thursday, June 23rd, 2006 the last cigarette rolled off the last working machine in Carrolls factory in Dundalk and was immediately autographed by the operator, fittingly a Dundalk man, Noel Mullen.

It was the last of billions of cigarettes, perhaps 20 billion, to be manufactured at the firm’s Dublin Road plant since it opened in 1970, and countless more were produced at the birth place of the company in Church Street in 1824.

It was a sombre moment for the remaining 66 workers as they watched the last patch of cigarettes roll off the machine, and many a tear was shed and a glass of champagne raised to mark the end of one of Dundalk’s best known companies that had been much more than an employer, but a way of life for many families.

The workers had gathered for an informal reception to mark the occasion and the 66 who remained where the last of 1,100 employed by Carrolls at one time in Dundalk and their Dublin HQ.

From its humble beginnings in a small shed in Earl Street, later to hand production at the back of premises in Church Street, Carrolls grew to one of the foremost names in Irish business, a cash rich company who rewarded their

workers with wages and conditions that were the envy of every worker not just in Dundalk but nationwide.

It’s decline was perhaps inevitable due to falling demand generated by health scares and by low cost producing countries, but when the final cigarette was stubbed out in June, 2006 the overwhelming feeling among those present was that Dundalk would never see the likes of Carrolls again as an employer.

Carrolls was good to Dundalk and Dundalk was good to Carrolls.

Pity the story had to end.