The multi-million pound initiative to build university business links between South Africa and Limerick might never have happened but for the quick thinking of a rugby referee.
Hilton Davies was a young diamond sorter when he was picked out as a rising star by his employers, the De Beers Corporation of South Africa. He was sent to university and had just completed his degree when he was seconded to Ireland to set up the first European outpost for the parent Anglo-American Corporation at the embryonic Shannon industrial estate. That zone was opening the door for Ireland to make a late entry to the industrial revolution. He was 26, married and a self-confessed rugby fanatic.
Besides setting up the Shannon Diamond and Carbide venture, which would blossom into the flagship De Beers and Boart Longyear operations at Shannon, he was "a pivotal influence" in the shaping of Shannon, according to the Shannon mastermind, Dr Brendan O'Regan.
Limerick rugby legend
He put Shannon at the centre of the industrial diamond and mining trade with a modern new industry and also put down the roots of a new town. He was the driving force in setting up the first church in Shannon, formed a tennis club and provided a showpiece, clubhouse and grounds for the company rugby side he formed. He played rugby with a vigour which won him respect on the field and in the workplace and also a place in Limerick rugby legend.
It was during a game involving Shannon Diamond that everything almost came apart. The Shannon company had been forced to call up an untried novice and during one phase of play the novice was clobbered by an opponent. Retribution was swift as Hilton Davies evened the score and stretched the offending rival. The referee, who was the size of two men, took steps to sort things out. But as he strode towards the tall South African, some team-mates hissed: "If you send him off, ref, we could all be out of jobs." So the ref did the proper thing: he sent off a different Shannon Diamond player. Hilton Davies stayed on at Shannon for six years before being recalled to South Africa to continue his conquest of corporate peaks. When he retired this year he had become executive chairman of Boart Longyear, makers of mining, excavation and exploration equipment, which had more than 50 operations around the world. Boart Longyear at Shannon has been a pioneering force in the group, leading the way in export breakthroughs to Russia and China, and today the company is involved in contracts from the tunnels of Tokyo to the Amazon Basin and from Siberia to the deserts of Australia.
Special relationship
Hilton Davies makes no secret of his special relationship with Shannon and the Limerick region. He keeps coming back to his career roots, where he says he spent the happiest years of his life, and he also finds the same sort of excitement in Shannon and Limerick which drove him in the 1960s. His Boart Longyear was the first overseas company to set up a research chair at the University of Limerick, and the National Technological Park around the university campus was picked out ahead of other bidders for the Boart Longyear science centre, which undertakes research and development for the worldwide group.
Saluted with an honorary doctorate by the University of Limerick in 1995 for his role in the rise of the Shannon Region, Dr Davies is now assembling South African backers for a chair of international entrepreneurship which will be shared between Limerick and a South African University. The initiative is taking off with powerful support under the wing of the Anglo American Corporation Foundation.
Dr Davies chose to finish off his farewell tour as Boart Longyear executive chairman back at Shannon, where it all started for him and for the Shannon-free zone, which is now home to over 100 export companies employing more than 5,600 staff.
Limerick Charter 800
Shannon also remained close to the heart of his wife, Heather; she stayed in touch with the little girl next door from the Shannon days, who later became her daughter-in-law. And later this year, when Boart Longyear of Shannon will be the appropriate sponsor of the November "Spirit of Rugby" weekend for the Limerick Charter 800 Year, Dr Davies will be returning to set in motion a second generation of Limerick-South Africa links.
It might have been so different if an investment opportunity had come off back in the 1960s. Then Hilton Davies and a number of business colleagues hit on the idea of buying a pub near Bunratty Castle which they frequented after work. Although they were young captains of industry in the pioneering days of Shannon, they were also married with families and they could not raise the £2,500 asking price. Which is why Hilton Davies went on to join the elite of business leaders in South Africa instead of becoming the owner of Durty Nelly's.