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)