Question to the Manager:
To ask the City Manager, why the 2014 City Council vans have a KK registration plus possess an ad for the maker of the coat of arms sticker on the side of the vans? (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
Motions:
To have the footpaths in Sundrive Park, Ballinlough repaired especially those sections that are trip hazards (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
To have heritage information panels installed on the wall of the graveyard of the former St Paul’s Church on Paul Street (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 20 March 2014
“Technical Memories (Part 76) – Goulding’s Heritage”
Picking up from last week’s column, in 1872 a change took place when the Goulding business became a limited company with a capital of £150,000. The first Board of Directors was composed of William Goulding, Chairman, H M Goulding, B Haughton, N D Murphy MP, and J S Smithson. The prospectus of the new company referred to 500 duly appointed agents in the United Kingdom, France, Portugal, Russia and America. It was reported that Gouldings were the first firm to ship a cargo of manures into the United States, and in addition to the countries referred to above, an extensive export trade was carried on with Norway and Natal in South Africa. A special manure was supplied to the latter for the sugar cane crop. The year 1872 was also noteworthy in that a further factory was opened at Singland in Limerick, where a 20-year lease was taken on the premises.
In the manufacture of superphostate, the use of mineral phosphates steadily replaced bones. At what date Gouldings first used the mineral phosphate is unknown, but in 1873, the company purchased phosphate beds in France. These deposits, belonging to a group known as Quercy phosphates, were situated near Cahora in the French Department of Lot. The material varied widely in quality and was difficult to mine. The Goulding Phosphate Company Ltd was formed to operate the mines. In 1876 this company leased a mill at Mercuès in the vicinity of the phosphate deposits and a works was in operation at Laberaudie in the same district. Operations were continued until 1880 when Gouldings ceded their rights to a French firm.
In 1874, a cargo of rock phosphate was imported from Pernambuco in Brazil, and in subsequent years this raw material was obtained from a variety of sources. In addition to the French phostate referred to, there was Estramadure phosphate from Spain, Sombrero phosphate from the West Indies, phosphates from Norway, Canada, Belgium and Russia. American phosphate from South Carolina was in use and in later years, particularly when a Florida factory was opened, the American material was used extensively.
Another new works was started in 1878 at Gracedieu, Waterford and in 1884, new works were commenced on Bressay one of the islands in the Shetland group. In the same year 1884, William Goulding died at the age of 67, having spent half a lifetime in the fertiliser business. From small beginnings, he rapidly built up and expanded the company until at the time of his death it consisted of five factories and was one of the largest concerns within Britain and Ireland. Seven years previous to this, Humphrey Manders had died at the age of 57. Following William Goulding’s death, his son, William Joshua Goulding, was appointed Chairman of the Company.
In 1902, sales of manures by the Goulding group had reached 119,337 tons and the building of a new factory at Newrath, Waterford was commenced. This now gave the company six factories in Ireland, situated at Londonderry and Belfast in the north, two at Dublin in the east, and at Waterford and Cork in the south, this making distribution to any part of the country an easy matter. Phosphates from North Africa began to replace material from other sources and eventually North Africa became the sole supply. During the next twenty years, output from these factories was gradually increased by improved processes and extensions to the factories. In 1919 a controlling interest was purchased in two further companies, namely the Drogheda Chemical Manure Company Ltd. and the Dublin and Wicklow Manure Company.
From 1920 to the commencement of World War II, production of fertilisers showed a steady increase from the factories in operation and the total deliveries rose to 178,000 tons. The company also went through two chairmanships, Sir William Joshua Goulding and his son Sir Lingard Amphlett Goulding. On Lingard’s death in 1935, Sir Basil Goulding took over as Chairman.
The World War II years coincided with a serious reduction in trade brought about by difficulties of obtaining shipping for imports of raw materials, but after the end of the of the war, production rose to surpass the pre-war level in a most spectacular manner. The post-war years were a time of immense activity, many items of plant were in a state of disrepair and other items were becoming obsolete. As a result all the factories witnessed extensive replacement of old equipment with modern machinery and methods of manufacture.
By 1956, due to the increasing demands on the Glen Factory, the first steps were taken towards the construction of a new factory on a 17-acre compound on the deep water site at the Marina, Cork on which the company had had an option for some years. The Irish Times for 29 March 1958 records that work began on the preparation of the Cork site at the Marina and the piling in October, 1955. There were 303 piles driven and the contractors started work in February, 1956. In all, 16,500 cubic yards of concrete were used in the construction of the factory, 291 tons of reinforced steel and 700 tons of steelwork.
To be continued…
Caption:
733a. Gouldings, Centre Park Road, Marina, 1958 (source: The Irish Times, 29 March 1958)
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 13 March 2014
“Technical Memories (Part 75) – Outputs and Targets”
The day before Verolme Dockyard was officially opened on 15 October 1960, the two and half million pounds factory of Messrs. Goulding Fertilisers Ltd at the Marina, Cork, was opened. Again Seán Lemass did the honours in the presence of a large and distinguished audience. In his speech, recorded in the Cork Examiner, he highlighted Ireland’s work in seeking out new export markets; “In the struggle for export markets everything, which makes for great output at lower costs, is vital and all the available evidence supports the view that greater use of fertilisers and lime is essential for the realisation of high production targets”.
The new factory was another milestone in Cork’s ever-widening industrial progress. It completed the final stages of an ambitious project conceived by the company some years previously for the creation in the Southern region of a modern fertiliser plant. The first stage for the compounding of fertilisers in powder and granular form was completed in 1958. The opening of the factory in 1960 marked the second and final stage, and its purpose was to produce single superphosphate in largely increased quantities and also for the first time in the country, triple superphosphates together with the large amounts of sulphuric acid required for both projects. The Marina plant was planned with an eye to the future, for it had been so designed that large-scale additions could be made conveniently in spaces reserved for them whenever the need arose.
When the Taoiseach arrived at the new factory, he was met by Sir Basil Goulding, who presented him with a symbolic key and invited him to unlock the gates and declare the factory opened. The Goulding family had deep commercial roots in Cork and this is outlined in the special supplement in the Cork Examiner. William Goulding was born in 1817, the first son of Joshua Goulding, of Birr in King’s County, and Sarah, née Manders, of Blackpool, in Cork. Three years later, a second son, Humphrey Manders Goulding, was born. When Joshua Goulding died in 1829, it is thought that the family moved to Cork. Certainly by 1842 William Goulding was living in the city and carrying on the business of an oil and colour merchant at 22 Maylor Street. In the following year, this business was transferred to 108 Patrick’s Street, premises which were occupied by the firm for many years and now the site of the site of the Savoy Cinema. The title W and H M Goulding came into being in 1846 when Humphreys Manders Goulding joined his elder brother in the business at the age of 26.
An early interest in agricultural materials was shown by the sale of Goulding’s Anti-smut Composition for seed wheat, which appeared on the market in 1844. The firm became agents for patent sheep and cattle dressings in 1854, and in the same year sold fertilisers produced by the British Economical Manure Company. The year also marked the beginning of Goulding’s interest in superphosphate manufacture. A small tonnage of superphostate was thus produced in their premises available at St Patrick Street and Nelson Place (now Emmett Place) and would have been inadequate and unsuitable for large scale manufacture. The results of these pilot-plant experiments must, however have been sufficiently encouraging to warrant bigger operations, for the Goulding Brothers procured additional premises for superphostate production in the following year, 1856. During 1855 and 1856, the premises of the Glen Distillery at Blackpool, in Cork, came on the market. This property comprised mills, kilns, stores, chimneys, spacious yards and various items of machinery and plant, and it was this property which, the Goulding brothers obtained for their manure works.
Superphostate manufacture at this time involved treating ground bones with sulphuric acid, the reaction being carried out in wooden tubs, cast-iron horse troughs, or even on the bare ground. The resulting material was removed to stores and allowed to dry out. All operations were by hand, and output was necessarily small. For example the total sales for the season 1860/ 61 season were no more than the 1960 production of superphosphate from one works for one week.
While bones were available locally, sulphuric acid had to be imported during the early years. The purchase of acid from outside sources was a serious drawback to the early development of the business. To remedy the situation, an acid plant, was built in 1860 and had been extended to five chambers by 1868. The sulphuric acid was produced from sulphur initially, but pyrites were also used at an early stage, and certainly not later than 1864. The pyrites could be purchased for £1/5 per ton and was readily available from the Avoca mines in Co Wicklow, while sulphur cost £7 per ton. In 1861, following the introduction of the acid plant, five special manures were offered in addition to superphostate. During the period 1861 to 1888 delivery of manures from Cork rose from 857 tons to 7,139 tons, and the demand was so great that it was considered to open a new factory. Dublin was selected as the location for this new works as it had good port facilities and was well placed for the delivery of manures.
To be continued…
Caption:
732a. Cork Docklands, 1949 (source: Cork City Library)
Question to the Manager:
To ask the City Manager what the Council’s response will be to the recent call by government for a public-private partnership for a National Disapora Centre, where the government will part fund a centre; will the Council be applying to develop the centre in Cork? (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
Motions:
To fix the cracked footpath outside the house numbers 1-5 Douglas Drive, Pic-Du-Jer Park, Ballinlough (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
That the Council replace the trees that fell in the recent storms on Beechwood Park green (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 6 March 2014
“Technical Memories (Part 74) – Keel Encounters”
Verolme occupied the site of the old yard at Rushbrooke, where ship repair work had been carried on for a century. The new yard covered a much larger area, a great deal of which was reclaimed from the estuary of the River Lee. The outstanding features of the new yard in 1960 were the huge 230 feet long plating shop and the new 668 feet building slip-way. The slip-way was flanked by two giant mobile 40-ton cranes, which were used to transport the plates from the workshop to the slip-way.
In accordance with the Verolme system of using the most modern techniques, the work was carried out by methods of prefabrication in the plating shop, which contained the most up-to-date shipbuilding machinery, and was equipped with a variety of cranes, some of which were run on overhead girders. As one journalist noted at the time “everything was designed for efficiency, combined with speed in production”. The opening on Saturday 15 October 1960 coincided with the laying of the keel of the first ship to be built in the new yard, a 14,700 ton dry cargo vessel for Irish Shipping Ltd. The vessel, 500 feet long, was the biggest to be built in the country, outside of Belfast. Guests who attended the opening of the shipyard – they numbered over 400 and included a large party form Dublin – saw some of these modern techniques in operation at the keel-laying ceremony. The keel section, which had been prefabricated in the workshop, was something new in keel construction. Instead of a single plate, as was usual in other yards, it consisted of a bottom and inner keel, joined together by separating plates. The section, weighing about 38 tons, was picked up in the workshop by the large 40-ton overhead crane, which travelled along the workshop on rails.
Outside the doors of the workshop the keel section was picked by one of the great mobile cranes, which then moved down its tracks and placed the keel section in the correct position on the slipway. The first stage in the actual building of the first ship in the new dockyard was completed in a matter of minutes. Incidentally the ship had not been given a name, and had been known only as no. 645 on the Verolme books. The beginning of shipbuilding had not awaited the final completion of the yard. Steel was imported from Great Britain for the building of the new ship. The conveyor system which was to bring the imported steel from the ships, unloading at a nearby jetty, to the workshop, was still in the course of completion. It was to be some time before the jetty was ready. In the meantime, a special crane equipped with magnets, was used to lift the plates and get them on the conveyor.
Although part of the keel was been laid, work was still proceeding on the building of the slip-way, about two thirds of which was completed. The construction of the slip-way, and the dockyard area generally, involved a great deal of excavation work and extensive piling had gone on for a number of years by the Irish Engineering and Harbour Construction Co. Ltd Dublin. John A Wood Ltd supplied all the gravel for reclamation and all aggregates for the concrete work at the yard. Another new feature of the Dockyards efficiency was an optical tower, in which, by an ingenious system of photographic enlargements, the plans of desired sections of the plates were projected onto the steel for speedy and accurate marking. This was the first time that such a method had been used in ship-building in this country, north or south. In addition new to Ireland was the use of automatic cutters or burners for the shaping of the profiles of plates – another example of modern techniques in the building of ships.
Irish workers were especially trained in Holland for work in the Cork Dockyard. Under the direction of these men, more workers were to be trained in the dockyard at Rushbrooke. Proposing a toast to the venture on the day of the official opening, An Taoiseach Seán Lemass recalled that he had first seen the dockyard 30 years previously. It was then derelict – an area of desolation – and its equipment was rusty, and was shortly afterwards to be sold as scrap. He then entertained the hope that day that the dockyard might be restored, but the outlook in the depressed thirties had not been bright and at the time dozens of vessels lay at permanent anchor before going on their last journey to the ship breakers. The picture remained unchanged until the war and the foundation of Irish Shipping Ltd and the taking over of the old dockyard to maintain and repair the collection of vessels acquired by Irish Shipping and which remained Ireland’s Lifeline through those difficult years. Seán Lemass spoke of the decision to carry on the work of the shipyard in the post war years and the important event in 1958 when the Irish Ambassador in the Hague made contact with Mr Cornelis Verolme and put him and the board of Cork Dockyard Ltd in touch with each other.
To be continued…
Caption:
732a. Verolme Dockyard, 1960 (source: John Brennan, The Yard, A History of Shipbuilding at Rushbrooke, Cobh).
Article 730- 27 February 2014
“Technical Memories (Part 73) – Verolme Bound”
Two years previous to Whitegate Oil Refinery officially opening in 1957, negotiations began with a Dutch firm for the establishment in Cork Harbour of a large scale ship building operation. The negotiations entered their final stages in October 1958 when Seán Lemass left for Holland on the invitation of Mr Cornelis Verolme, owner of Verolme United, an important ship building concern at Rotterdam, the largest port on the European continent.
Verolme United Shipyards was a concern with a world-wide reputation. It had large shipyards in the Netherlands at Alblasterdam, Meusden and Rosenburg, which could build and repair vessels up to 50,000 tons. In a biography of Verolme, written by Ariëtte Dekker, Cornelis Verolme came from a farming background and rose to success without a university education, but had business acumen to succeed. By setting up technical training and recruiting personnel from competitors Verolme foresaw the growing need for qualified technicians to make his ventures have an excellent reputation. Verolme was also someone who went regularly amongst his workers and knew many of his employees by name.
Another Verolme company manufactured diesel engines, steam reciprocating engines and boilers at Rotterdam, whilst another company belonging to the same concern had a marine electrical plant at Massluis. An idea of the extent of Verolme United Shipyards’ activities was given in a Dutch publication in 1958 which gave a listing of ships under construction or on order in shipyards in the Netherlands. It showed that Cornelis Verolme’s three shipyards had more than any other single concern in Holland. It had on its order books 36 vessels, and of them 25 were tankers. One of them being, being built for the Dutch Esso Company, was of 46,000 tons; three more, for American owners, were of 47,000 tons; two were 45,000 tons and six were 19,500 tons. Prior to opening in Rushbrooke, he has successfully worked with the Brazilian government enabling him to build a shipyard in the Jacarecanga Bay near Rio de Janeiro.
The Southern Star newspaper in October 1958 records that Seán Lemass was accompanied by JP Beddy, Chairman of the Irish Industrial Development Authority to meet Cornelius Verolme. The visit enabled the Dutch Company to take over Cork Dockyard Ltd, Rushbrooke and to lease certain installations at Haulbowline for large scale ship building. The new yard was to concentrate on building large vessels and was not to be in competition with the existing ship-builders of the 26 counties. The Rushbrooke project was pitched to proceed in five stages and was to take six years to complete. Its cost, estimated at over £5 ½ million initially, was to met partly by the sponsors and partly by government loans. The first stage provided for the building of two new slipways at Rushbrook, enabling vessels of 50,000 tons to be constructed there. The existing yard was to be modernised and the drydock at Haulbowline was to be greatly enlarged to enable vessels of up to 47,000 tons to be repaired. In the first stage, direct employment was to be provided for about 450 men with a quest to have 1,800 eventually on the payroll.
There had been a ship-building concern in Rushbrooke since the nineteenth century. At that time Joseph Wheeler was one of a group of enterprising Cork businesses who financed the ship building industry in Cork Harbour. The period 1832-1860 was particularly prosperous in Cork’s shipping history and the house flags of many Cork’s shipping firms were to be seen on the masts of their vessels in all parts of the world. There were the shipyards of Hennessy and Brown at Passage West, and at those of Wheeler, Pike and Robinson at the head of the river. Numerous timber and iron ships were produced for home and foreign owners – ships which conformed to the highest international standards of the time and enhanced the reputation of Cork Harbour’s craftsmen. About the 1840s Joseph Wheeler also had a building-slip on the Cork river-bank. The Cork Directory of 1842-43 contains the following entry, Joseph Wheeler, Ship-builder. His shipyard was located near where the Port of Cork yard now stands. Wheeler built numerous timber-vessels for Cork based owners and foreign merchants. The Illustrated London News of 11 February 1860, carried a description of a 500 ton sailing ship from Wheeler’s Yard. The Aura was the largest ship to be constructed in Cork up to that date. She was the eighth vessel to be built for exporter Mr Harvey and was to be commanded by Corkman and seaman Captain Belchel.
Wheeler’s enterprise at Rushbrooke opened for shipbuilding in 1860. Between 1917 and 1920, the dock, then owned by the Furness Whithy Company, was enlarged. While no ships were built at Rushbrooke – with the exception of some 200 ton barges – very extensive alterations were undertaken and in some, major overhauls ships were almost literally rebuilt there. In the post war years, when the Cork Dockyard operated the yard, major conversion work was successfully done at Rushbrooke including the conversion of two ex Flower Class corvettes to passenger and cargo vessels for Mediterranean service and the conversion of an ex River Class frigate to a passenger and motor car ferry for the Dover-Calais service.
To be continued…`
Caption:
730a. Cornelis Verolme, July 1968 (source: Cork City Library)
Question to the Manager:
To ask the City Manager, what is the status of the Blackrock Harbour area plan? Plus have tidal surges and sea level rise been taken into account re the proposed stepped down area into the tidal area itself? (Cllr Kieran McCarthy).
Motions:
That the Council hold a National Expo in Docklands in future years (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
That a Docklands Festival be established making use of vacant buildings such as Odlums (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 20 February 2014
“Technical Memories (Part 72) – Markets of Ferocity”
The first speaker at the opening ceremony of Whitegate on 22 September 1959 was the Chairman of the Irish Refining Company Mr D A C Dewdney, who was introduced by Dr R R Lawton, general manager of the company (continued from last week). Mr Dewdney spoke from a rostrum erected at the end of the Mechanical Services Hall and behind him was the triptych which was involved in the formal opening by the Taoiseach Seán Lemass. Surmounting the triptych was a painting by Soirle MacCana’s of the complete refinery.
In the course of his speech, and detailed in the Cork Examiner Mr Dewdney recalled that it while William Norton TD was Minister for Industry and Commerce that the real seeds of the refinery were sown and it was through Mr Norton’s persistence and persuasion that the three oil companies concerned – Caltex, Shell-Mex BP, and Esso – came to accept the Irish Government’s proposal that the refinery should be built. He voiced the debt of gratitude the Irish Refining Company gave to the Chairman of the Industrial Development Authority, Dr Beddy. From the moment, the Refinery Company had decided to expend £12million on the refinery, they had co-operation from all concerned – government departments, Cork County Council, the Cork Harbour Board, and the Electricity Supply Board. Mr Dewney continued; “How satisfactory, then, is it for me to be able to place on record the fact that we were able to have the refinery built exclusively with Irish labour, running at times into over 2,000 men, and this, in spite of the complexity and technical demands of such an operation”.
Mr Dewdney noted that the problem of recruitment of staff for operating the refinery had not been an issue. People with the requisite skills or potential ability became available in the area in large numbers. Irish materials were also used. The Lumus Company were the contractors. All the administration buildings were designed by Irish architect, Mr James Rupert Boyd Barrett and built by the Cork firm of builders, Messrs Hegarty and Sons. Boyd Barrett had nearly half a century of practice under his belt and had designed many major buildings throughout Ireland, including the Department of Industry and Commerce in Dublin, four new churches in Cork and ten new churches in the Diocese of Kerry. Dewdney remarked; “This was an Irish refinery in conception and in fact. It started a new industry for Ireland and would make a significant contribution towards the steady progress of the Irish economy. It would give added impetus to the drive towards greater industrialisation”. Dewdney also spoke of a greatly increased movement of shipping into the Port of Cork. At that time, the refinery was operating at an annual throughput of about one and half million tons. Taking crude oil in and products out represented a very considerable volume of shipping he detailed; “I do not believe there is any industry in the world where competition for markets is fiercer or more sustained than it is in the oil industry”.
In his speech, Minister for Industry and Commerce Jack Lynch praised the Refinery Company’s confidence in the developing economy of Ireland. This he alerted to was further illustrated in that the capacity of output of the finished product was about 50 per cent in excess of the contemporary Irish market of one million tons per annum. This was to provide for an expected continuing expansion in demand due to increased use of petroleum products in railways, shipping, jet aircraft and commercial and private motor vehicles, as well as in industry where industrial fuel oil was expected to be used more and more as an alternative to coal.
According to Jack Lynch, Whitegate Oil Refinery would give permanent employment to over 400 workers. These were to be drawn from many parts of the country and it would provide opportunities for Irish workers to acquire training and to obtain employment as skilled craftsmen and in scientific and technical work. He described that higher technical, technological and professional training programmes were to be provided in the local vocational schools, in technical institutes like that in Cork City and in University College Cork. He argued that as new forms of training would be required every effort would be made to construct proper facilities. On this point, he highlighted the fact that many of the technicians amongst the refinery employees were products of technical schools and more than 50 were graduates of Irish universities. Indeed, about this time, and as a side remark the committee of the Crawford Municipal Technical Institute through the leadership of William Ellis TD began to call for a new technology college, of which it was to take another decade or so before it came to fruition (Cork VEC Minutes).
Jack Lynch also noted of Cork Harbour as one of the world’s finest harbours. He referred to the new Verolme dockyard in the course of construction, the construction of Cork Airport, Irish Steel Holdings in the middle of the harbour were planning major expansion, and a new fertiliser factory was planned. These are also worthwhile to have a quick look at in terms of the enormous technical expertise needed to carry them out.
To be continued….
Caption:
729a. Cork Harbour, c.1900, from Queenstown/ later Cobh (source: Cork City Museum)
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 13 February 2014
“Technical Memories (Part 71) – An Asprit de Corps”
In the Southern Star, 28 February 1959, reasons were detailed why the Irish Refining Co. Ltd choose Whitegate for the site of their refinery. Dr R R Lawton, General Manager of the Company said at the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, that Cork Harbour was reasonably sheltered and in the initial stage of development it was possible to bring in tankers up to 35,000 tons. By dredging on a fairly modest scale tankers up to 45,000 tons could be brought alongside the Whitegate jetty. Further dredging should make it possible to bring in 65,000 ton tankers and it was for that size ship that the jetty was designed. Dr Lawton noted that generally speaking oil companies have the reputation of being good employers and the staff who joined a particular oil company tended to stay with it noting; “Each of the principal companies appear to develop a type of mentality peculiar to itself and have been able to imbue its staff with an asprit de corps, which is highly commendable”.
In the Southern Star, 25 April 1959, the tanker called Vasum is reported as the first super tanker to discharge at the refinery. Built in 1955 as the flagship of Shell Tankers Rotterdam, the 32,000 ton tanker was the largest to ever to visit Irish waters and she was the largest vessel of any type to tie up in Cork Harbour. Irish Shell Ltd were hosts to a large party of guests, which included many Irish industrialists and the captain of the tanker, J Sieben, who had just taken command of the vessel the previous Saturday. The captain was presented with two prints of old Cork, one depicting Cork Harbour, and the other, the Grand Parade about a hundred years previously.
Dr R R Lawton at a press conference in mid August 1959, held at the oil refinery, noted that all the products that the refinery was capable of manufacturing were being produced. They were butane gas for lighting and heating, propane gas for welding, premium and regular motor spirit, tractor vapourising oil, jet fuel for planes and diesel oil. At the time, the Calor Gas Company were building premises in Midleton for the distribution of butane and propane, which formerly were imported. The Kosane-gas Company, a Danish firm, were also seeking a site in Midleton. Their needs were supplied by Whitegate. The first shipment of petrol was sent to Cork on 7 August 1959, just two years after the first sod was turned. This was deemed very positive in view of bad winters in 1957 and 1958 and poor weather in the summer of 1958. Mr Lawton also noted that Whitegate was the only air cooled refinery in Europe. It has cost £11,000,000, and £3,000,000 of that was spent on Irish contracts and wages.
When Taoiseach Seán Lemass officially opened the £12 million oil refinery at Whitegate on 22 September 1959, he said the undertaking was as “modern and efficient as human skill and equipment could make it”. The Cork Examiner on 23 September 1959 remarked that the symbolic opening ceremony was marked by a celebration party attended by some three hundred guests. Lemass remarked that the establishment of a new major industrial undertaking was always an occasion for rejoicing; “the function celebrates a very significant development in the extension of Irish manufacturing industry. It is appropriate therefore, that so many representative people should be assembled here to wish success to the new enterprise…The industrial progress of Ireland is a long road, to which indeed there is no end, but an occasion like this when a new milestone is passed, we can look back on how far we have come, and in that way, find encouragement to face the problems that are still ahead, Whatever problems or new difficulties the future may bring they cannot be any greater than those we have already encountered and surmounted”.
The ceremony took place in the vast mechanical services building close to the processing area of the refinery. There, Seán Lemass turned the miniature valve locking together the small panels of a mahogany and silver triptych, the silver engravings of which symbolised the old and the new – the round towers and horse ploughs of yesteryear the refinery fractionating towers and the motor ploughs of today-and in which the centre panel showed the refinery jetty projecting into Cork Harbour towards Cobh.
The symbolic opening was the culmination of one of the largest celebration parties ever staged in the country by the directors of the Irish Refinery Co Ltd. The guests from overseas were flown from London to Dublin on the Monday and the entire Dublin and overseas party travelled to Midleton by train, the Cork contingent joining them at Kent Station. Mr Lemass arrived at Whitegate in a car, and there inspected a guard of honour of Gardai Siochana under Chief Superintendent J O’Dowd. At Midleton, the party entered a fleet of buses to complete their journey to the refinery. All along the route people lined the route to wave at the ten buses and private cars which went by.
To be continued…
Caption:
728a. The tanker, Vasum, 1962 (source: Cork City Library)