Hugh Oram thinks that the history of Irish motoring could be better recorded
Ireland has a wealth of motoring history in its side road and back roads. We could have a series of blue plaques all over the country to denote magic moments in motoring history, similar to the blue plaques which mark where famous artists, writers and inventors were born or lived.
Some of the earliest dated plaques would belong to John Boyd Dunlop, the Scotsman who invented the pneumatic tyre. The first factory in the world to make tyres using Dunlop's 1888 patent opened in 1889 at Upper Stephen Street, close to South Great George's Street in Dublin.
The site is now occupied by the headquarters of Dunnes Stores and there's a bronze - rather than a blue - plaque on the wall outside. The Irish Dunlop factory in Cork didn't do so well in the long run, closing down nearly a century later. But Dunlop did splendidly out of his invention, living in a grand house at the top of Ailesbury Road, which is now the Belgian embassy.
Not long after tyres came traffic lights. Some sources say that the first primitive set were put up on what is now the Clontarf Road in Dublin in 1893 by one Fergus Mitchell, who has also been claimed as the first car owner in Ireland.
Other sources say that the first owner-driver of an internal combustion car in Ireland was Dr John Colohan, who lived at Rock Road in Blackrock, a rather quieter thoroughfare in November, 1896.
Dublin City Council says that the first proper set of traffic lights in Dublin was erected at the corner of Clare Street and Merrion Square in 1938.
The first petrol pump in the then new Irish Free State, according to Bob Montgomery, curator of the RIAC archive in Dawson Street, Dublin, was at 25 Dawson Street. The year was 1923 and it was put up by the Nassau Motor Company. By 1925, pumps had proliferated across the State.
The first garage in Ireland was Peare's, opened at 26 Catherine Street, Waterford, in 1900 by William Peare. He went off to fight in the first World War and in 1917 the business was bought by John Kelly, great-grandfather of the present managing director, David McCarthy. His company, John Kelly (Waterford), Opel dealers, moved out to the Cork road in Waterford some years ago.
The original Peare's garage is still there, now occupied by Martin Barrett's Skoda dealership. "The building is still 90 per cent the same," says Barrett, "although there have been additions. The yard is still the same, although of course, the workshop's been updated."
Another source of blue plaque nostalgia are sites of the assembly industry. Before free trade, imported cars had to be assembled locally, but the sector was swept away at midnight on December 31st, 1972, when we joined the EEC.
The first factory of the industry was the Ford plant at Marina, Cork - it opened in 1917 to make tractors. Later it switched to the famous black Fords so beloved of generations of Irish farmers. Henry Ford's father came from just outside Clonakilty, Co Cork, and a memorial can be seen at Ballinascarty, site of the old family homestead.
The Ford plant in Cork closed down in 1984. There's now little evidence of it, not even a plaque.
The other car assembly location outside Dublin was at Trinity Street in Wexford, where at one time, Renaults were assembled. In 1984, Wexford Electronix started in that plant, as a follow-on from Renault car assembly.
The new company was a big employer in the town, making cable harnesses for the auto industry, but it went into receivership at the end of last year.
Dublin was a thriving centre of car assembly. In 1950, the very first VW to be built outside Germany, let alone the very one made here, was put together in 1950 in the former tramway depot at Shelbourne Road, Dublin.
Today, Ballsbridge Motors is on the site. Other well-known assemblers included G A Brittain (Morris and Riley) at Portobello Bridge at the start of Rathmines, and McCairns Motors (Vauxhall and other marques) on the Swords Road at Santry, close to the present day Omni Park shopping centre. Other assemblers included Booth Poole at Islandbridge and Lincoln & Nolan, which had its main address in Lower Baggot Street and an assembly factory at New Wapping Street. One very famous name in motor cycle assembly was Reg Armstrong, who had his factory at South Dock in Ringsend.
The oil companies, before they moved into posh headquarters, once had city centre offices. McMullan Bros (now better known as Maxol), were at 28 Upper O'Connell Street, while Esso was close by at numbers 1 and 2 Upper O'Connell Street. Irish Shell used to be in Fleet Street. Publishing, too, deserves a plaque; for years, the famous Motoring Life magazine was at 39 Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin.
Bob Montgomery of the RIAC also points out that many places around the country have strong connections with motor sport. About three miles out of Athy, Co Kildare, on the Dublin side of the town, by the Mote of Ardscull, and easily seen from the main road, is a memorial to the Gordon Bennett race in 1903, which he says was the most important event ever in Irish motor sport. It was the world's first motor car race on a closed circuit.
The Phoenix Park began to be used for motor racing 99 years ago, and the interpretative centre in the park has material on the subject. In the main square of Dunboyne, Co Meath, you can see a plaque commemorating the races that were staged in this area in the 1950s and the 1960s. With so many places having links to our motoring history, many blue plaques could be put up to keep a new generation of motoring historians happy.