OUR DRIVE FOR SUCCESS
QUESTION On a visit to Santry Garda Station I saw a plaque indicating that it was once a Chrysler factory. What is the story of Irish car production? IN the days when Irish industry was protected by tariffs, cars had to be imported in individual parts and assembled locally. For years, it was a thriving industrial sector.
But with the signing of the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement in 1965, and Ireland joining the then EEC in 1973, the death knell was sounded for Irish car assembly. These days, European and Asian cars are imported directly from car production plants elsewhere.
The biggest local car plant was Ford, which began in Cork in 1917 with tractor assembly. It became so big that by 1938, 73,000 cars, trucks and tractors had been assembled there and at the height of its prosperity, it employed 7,000 people. Models such as the Prefect and the Cortina became very popular on Irish roads. But it closed in 1984, along with many other industries that depended on the plant such as the Irish Dunlop factory in Cork.
Away from Cork, the main centre for car assembly was Dublin, and the factory at Shanowen Road, Santry, i n north Dublin. Firstly, i t put together Rootes cars, then it became a Chrysler factory, before finally ending up under the Talbot name. Such marques as Hillman and Sunbeam were made there.
Also in Santry, McCairns Motors assembled Vauxhall and Chevrolet cars, while Brittain’s factory at Portobello put together Morris cars. While popular makes of English cars were made in Dublin, there were plenty of more exotic marques, too. The John Caldwell factory at Lucan assembled Panhard cars, while Borgward, a noted German car in the 1950s, was assembled at Butterfield Road in Rathfarnham. The TVR sports car was put together in Marlborough Lane, Donnybrook. Caveys in Upper Camden Street assembled Jaguar cars.
Some of the big car plants managed to survive into the early Eighties, such as Fiat in Ballyfermot. Triumph cars were made at Cashel Road in Crumlin; the Leo Pharma company now occupies the site.
The most famous car assembly operation in Dublin was probably that for the VW Beetle. It began in the old tram depot on Shelbourne Road, Ballsbridge, in 1951 and continued there until 1955, when sales success necessitated a move to the Naas Road. The first VW Beetle made outside Germany was assembled in Ballsbridge and today, that car is preserved at the VW museum at Wolfsburg in Germany.
Apart from Ford in Cork, other assembly plants operated outside Dublin, such as the Heinkel bubble car, which was made in the old Great Northern Railway engineering works in Dundalk. For a time, O’Shea’s made Opel cars in Cork and DKW cars were made at Ballincollig, Cork, while Wexford had the Renault assembly works.
Of all the car brands assembled here, the most curious was the Shamrock, a big luxury car aimed at the US market. It began in Tralee, but production moved to Castleblayney, Co. Monaghan. Only ten were ever built and of those ten, eight still exist.
The first car ever made here is said to have been the one put together by Daniel Alesbury at his factory in Edenderry, Co. Offaly, in 1904. It went on show at Ireland’s first motor show in the RDS in 1907. More recent attempts at Irish car production have failed. DeLoreans were built in Belfast between 1981 and 1982, while from 1983 to 1987, the TMC Costin sports car was made in Wexford.
N. Lally, Co. Louth. QUESTION In 1650, Scots preacher Zachary Boyd accused Oliver Cromwell to his face of being a ‘sectary and blasphemer’. What became of him? ZACHARIAS ( Zachary) Boyd (c.1585-1653) was educated in Kilmarnock before attending Glasgow, in 1601, and then St Andrews University, (1603-1607) from which he graduated with an MA.
From there he went to France and studied at the University of Saumur where his cousin was Professor of Divinity. He stayed in France for 14 years, returning in 1623 following persecution of Protestants.
He became Minister of the Barony of Glasgow and held that position until his death in 1653. Boyd was heavily involved in the religious poli- tics of his time and wrote many sermons, scriptural poems and other devotional works. He met Charles I the day after his coronation at Holyrood in 1633 and wrote a Latin ode for the coronation which he delivered on the steps of the palace.
When Oliver Cromwell came to Glasgow in 1650, he sent out an order that on Sunday there was to be no preaching in the pulpits. But Zachary Boyd was determined to fulfil the services of the day. Cromwell attended the service in the Barony Church with a detachment of his troops just as the fiery Boyd was sermonising about ‘ram and the he-goat as they appeared unto Daniel’.
He called Cromwell a ‘sectary’ (a member of a sect or cult) and a blasphemer. By one account, Cromwell’s secretary offered to shoot him on the spot. Cromwell responded by inviting him to dinner and subjected him to three hours of prayer. Boyd left his headquarters with a completely changed opinion of the ‘intruder’.