Years of the 5: 90th anniversary of opening of Dunlop factory in Cork 

In 1935, the Irish Dunlop Company opened its factory at Centre Park Road, held under a lease from Henry Ford & Son.

Under licence from the State, the company was to provide at least 80% of the country’s requirements of pneumatic rubber tyres.

The story of Dunlops is said to have begun with Scots veterinary John Boyd Dunlop. He established Downe Veterinary Clinic in Downpatrick, Co. Down, with his brother James before moving to a practice in May Street, Belfast.

One day, while fixing his son’s tricycle, John heard the child complain about the rubber coverings on the wheels. He set about creating a simple invention - the pneumatic tyre.

Continuing to experiment, John patented his invention in 1888. However, two years after he was granted it, he was informed it was invalid as a 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 race at an event at Queen’s University Sports.

Soon, businessmen and MPs such as Harvey Du Cros were competing for shares in the Pneumatic Tyre and Booths Cycle Agency Ltd, a company with John as director and to which he had sold his patent rights.

By the early 1890s, the company had been re-named Dunlop Tyres and launched divisions in Europe and the US 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 US in 1893, with a factory in New York. 

That year, British manufacturing was relocated from Belfast and Dublin to Coventry, which was the centre of the British cycle industry.

From 1900, the company began to diversify from cycle tyres and manufactured its first motor car tyre.

In 1910, Dunlop developed its first aeroplane tyre and golf ball.

By 1918, it was the 14th 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, and by 1930, had secured an equal market share with its arch rival Michelin in France.

The Dunlop Rubber Company (Ireland) Ltd was incorporated on March 24, 1924. Three years later, the company opened a large distribution depot in Cork for the southern trade, erecting 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 and the distribution depot manager, T W Kerrigan, had 25 years’ experience with the motor and cycle business.

By 1934, the Irish Dunlop Company Limited was a public company and in 1935 commenced manufacturing at the new Cork 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 here, granting them a lucrative 80% share of tyre production in the Irish Free State.

Snippets of social history from this time include the foundation of Dunlop’s famous social club and an Athletic Club.

In December 1936, at the Novices’ Cross-Country Championship at Bandon, the club was represented by eight competitors.

W A Nestor, a county and Munster sprint champion, joined the workforce in 1936, as well as prominent athlete, Florrie O’Mahony from Ballydehob - brother of Danno who won the wrestling world title in 1935. 

At the outbreak of World War II, the Dunlop company was producing virtually all types of pneumatic tyres, a complete range of rubber footwear, rubber soles and heels, rubber hot water bottles, golf balls, tennis balls, and other articles manufactured with rubber.

However, war created a shortage of raw materials and forced the company to concentrate on the production of tyres, to the virtual exclusion of other goods.

Dunlop was appointed official agents by the government for disposal of all grades of salvage rubber. It was illegal to dispose of this other than through authorised agents, and cash payments were to made on the spot.

By April, 1947, the company had entered into a contract to purchase from Messrs Henry Ford & Son Ltd for £260,000 its factory at Marina Cork. The modern building contained nearly 200,000 square feet of floor space, fronting upon a deep water berth on the River Lee.

Fast forward to the 1960s, and many Irish households and industrial and commercial projects were dependent on Dunlop.

The company produced 35,000 golf balls a year and tennis balls were coming onto the market from Cork at the rate of 6,000 dozen a year. Footwear leaped from 730,000 pairs in 1936 to 1,500,000 pairs in 1961.

Many countries used Cork products, including large markets in Britain and Germany and further afield in South Africa, Pakistan and the U.S.

In the 1960s, Dunlop had 2,500 Irish employees and in November 1965, an expansion programme included moving the company’s head office from Dublin to Cork’s Marina to a specially constructed six-storey block.

Sadly, Dunlop fell victim to economic pressures and finally closed down in Cork in 1984, when around 850 of its staff were made redundant.