Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 31 July 2014
“Technical Memories (Part 84) –Building a Tyre Empire”
“What began as an initial pilot for tyre manufacture grew into a major industrial complex, producing a range of products varying from mattresses to footwear and golf-balls. Along with its neighbouring Marina twin, Ford, have they have become two of the corner-stones of Cork’s prosperity and account for a major portion of the city’s employable pool. Barely 24 hours prior to Mr E J Power’s announcement about Dunlop’s expansion, Mr T Brennan, Managing Director of Fords, announced his company’s intention of spending of £1.5 million to their assembly capacity” (Journalist, Irish Press, Monday 15 November 1965, p.6).
On Thursday 11 November 1965, Irish Dunlop held a press conference. Mr E J Power, Chief Executive outlined the new re-organisation plans for the company – a massive project involving the capital outlay of some £2m and the building of two entirely new giant blocks in Dublin and Cork. This was another enormous investment package into the Cork region like those written about in the column the last couple of weeks.
At the conference, Mr Power traced the history of Dunlop’s contribution to the national Industrial effort beginning back in the mid-thirties when the company undertook large scale, native manufacture of road tyres as a vital contribution to the infant assembly industry and looked after 80 per cent of the country’s tyre needs. Much of Dunlop’s early story in Cork has not been penned. With no social history ever written, its early evolution is tied up with snippets of stories in national and regional newspapers through time.
The story of Dunlops is said to have began with Scots Veterinary John Boyd Dunlop. He established Downe Veterinary Clinic in Downpatrick with his brother James Dunlop before moving to a practice in May Street, Belfast. John, one day on fixing of his son’s tricycle heard his son complaining about the rubber coverings on the wheels of the tricycle. John set about creating a simple invention – the pneumatic tyre. Continuing to experiment, he patented his invention in 1888. However, two years after he was granted the patent Dunlop was officially informed that it was invalid as Scottish inventor Robert William Thomson (1822–1873), had patented the idea in France in 1846 and in the US in 1847. Nevertheless, Dunlop’s idea gripped the public imagination in a big way when racing cyclist, William Hume, using pneumatic tyres, won every cycling event at Queen’s University Sports. Soon businessmen and mps such as Harvey Du Cros and others competed for shares in Dublin – Pneumatic Tyre and Booths Cycle Agency Ltd – to which John Boyd sold his patent rights and of which he became a director. John Dunlop resigned from the company in 1895, and sold most of his shares in the company.
In the early 1890s Dunlop Tyres established divisions in Europe and North America. The company established factories overseas. Dunlop partnered with local cycle firms such as Clement Cycles in France and Adler in Germany. The American Dunlop Tyre Company was established in the USA in 1893, with a factory in New York. In 1893, British manufacture was relocated from Belfast and Dublin to Coventry, which was the centre of the British cycle industry. In 1896 Harvey Du Cros sold the company to the English financier Ernest Terah Hooley for £3 million. Almost immediately, Hooley refloated the company for £5 million as the Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company. From 1900, the company began to diversify from cycle tyres and manufactured its first motor car tyre. In 1906, a car wheel manufacturing plant was built. In 1910 Dunlop developed its first aeroplane tyre and golf ball. By 1918, Dunlop was the fourteenth largest manufacturing company in Britain, and its only large scale tyre manufacturer. In the late 1920s, Dunlop had manufacturing subsidiaries in the US, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland and Japan. By 1930, Dunlop secured an equal market share with its arch rival Michelin in France.
The Dunlop Rubber Company (Ireland) Ltd was incorporated on 24 March 1924. An article in the Cork Examiner, 16 November 1927 reveals that the company found it necessary to open a large distribution depot in Cork for the southern trade. To suit their purpose they erected a large brick and ferro-concrete structure at the Lower Glanmire Road adjacent to Kent Station. The storage space of the building amounted to 9,000 square feet. A hydro-electric solid tyre fitting press was installed, and also a compressor for giant tyres. A full range of pneumatic and solid motor tyres, and all accessories, were stocked. Goods manufactured by the subsidiary companies of the Dunlop group were to be stocked at Dunlop House, which included waterproof garments, rubber goods, and sporting requisites. The distribution depot manager was T W Kerrigan, former assistant Irish manager and Southern representative of the company, who had 25 years connection with the motor and cycle business.
In 1934, the Irish Dunlop Company Limited became a public company and commenced manufacturing at a new factory, leasing a building from Fords on the Marina. The then Minister for Industry Seán Lemass TD made a deal with Dunlops to entice them to set up a factory whereby the company would have an 80 per cent share of tyre production in the Irish Free State.
To be continued…
Caption:
753a. Former Dunlops building, Lower Road, Cork, 1927-1934 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)