From 1917 to 1984, the Ford factory in Cork employed over 20,000 people; a new book recalls the good times, writes Barry Roche, Southern Correspondent

One wonders what Henry Ford would have made of it all. The man who once famously remarked that "history is more or less bunk" is about to have his contribution to Ireland's industrial history celebrated with the launch of a book on the Ford plant in Cork. Entitled Are You Still Below? The Ford Marina Plant, Cork 1917-1984, the attractive 158-page volume is the work of historian Miriam Nyhan, who researched the story for her M.Phil at the Department of History in University College Cork and adapted her thesis for publication by the Collins Press.

A native of Arklow, Co Wicklow but - like Henry Ford - with an ancestral link to West Cork, Nyhan admits that she knew very little about Ford when she started the project but, over the course of two years of research and more than 40 interviews with former staff, she was hooked.

"I was young when the plant closed in Cork and I am pretty typical of most females in my general apathy to the wonders of cars, but the story of Ford's in Cork quickly reeled me in," she observes in her afterword. One of the reasons Nyhan was intrigued was the passionate response she received from people when she solicited their opinion on Ford, with the near-seven decade history of the plant in Cork often being reduced to strongly held views about the closure of the plant in 1984.

Curiously, Nyhan found that the most angry criticisms of Ford's closure of the plant were voiced by those who had never worked there, as exemplified by one Cork historian who informed her that the multinational had "disembowelled" Cork's economy by pulling out.

If the reactions to her inquiries intrigued Nyhan, the genesis of her decision to research the Ford story lay in her contact with Denis McSweeney, current marketing director of Henry Ford & Sons, and his enthusiasm for the history of the plant to be recorded.

A native of Gurranabraher who grew up in nearby Churchfield on Cork's northside, McSweeney (59) fondly recalls family trips to the beach at Fountainstown or Youghal in a Model Y, and epic excursions to drag hunts in Kenmare and Liscarroll in a Ford V8 Saloon.

"From our lofty perch above the city, we had a view down the river to the Marina where we could see the white walls and black roof of the industrial giant stretched along the banks of the Lee," recalls McSweeney in an eloquent and affectionate foreword.

McSweeney, whose uncles Paddy and Jim had worked in the Marina before moving to work in Ford's plant in Dagenham, Essex, began work at the Marina plant on October 4th 1971 as a security man before transferring to sales and rising to his present position.

"When we came to celebrate the centenary of the Ford Motor Company in 2003, we realised that the number of people remaining who had memories of the Marina was reducing inexorably," observes McSweeney. "I believed that we had an obligation to record that history and to conserve for posterity the memories and stories of the vibrant community who spent a significant portion of their lives at the Marina."

The resultant work, based on archival research complemented by over 40 interviews with former staff, some now sadly deceased, provides a fascinating insight into the part that Ford's played not just in the economic life but the social fabric of Cork city for almost 70 years.

Nyhan expertly traces the history of the plant, from its establishment on a 136-acre site of the city's racetrack following a visit by Henry Ford to Cork in 1912, and the plant's varying fortunes through both the national and international events that shaped much of the 20th century.

The impact of the War of Independence, the Civil War, the Economic War, the Great Depression, the second World War and entry into the EEC are all recorded. Even the Russian Revolution and the demand for Fordson tractors in the Soviet Union gets a mention.

Just how important a role Ford played in Leeside life can be gleaned from the fact that by 1930, Ford's employed 7,000 people in Cork and was the second largest employer in the Free State after the railways and one which could rival some of the island's best known firms.

As Nyhan observes: "When Dubliners boasted the brewing excellence as exemplified by Guinness, and Northerners proudly laid claim to Harland and Wolff, Cork now too claimed its own important location on the Irish industrial map."

It's estimated that more than 20,000 Corkonians would have worked at Ford over the years, with some well-known Corkonians such as broadcaster Donnacha O Dulaing and All-Ireland hurlers Mick Cashman and Josie Hartnett among those who clocked in there.

Sport features too in the history of the plant with the company's soccer team, Fordson's - named after the tractors produced at the plant - winning the Free State Cup in 1926, before the 1930s saw the closure of the foundry and the move of tractor manufacturing to Dagenham. Foundry employees were left with the choice of unemployment or emigration, and thousands followed the work to Dagenham, thereby giving rising to perhaps one of the most famous figures in Cork lore from the 1930s through to the 1960s - the Dagenham Yank.

"According to these recollections," writes Nyhan, "the Dagenham Yank typically donned the most fashionable of suits while boasting of their 'big money' in the city's pubs for the two-week duration of the trip home to Cork."

Lore aside, the economic impact of the Dagenham Yank on Cork should not be underestimated. In the 1940s and 1950s up to 40 telegram boys were employed delivering telegraph money orders in Cork and, between 1939 and 1969, it's estimated £3 billion was sent home to Cork.

The 1960s brought huge changes in Cork, with major investment in the plant in anticipation of entry into the EEC, but changes in assembly line work meant the Marina could no longer compete with larger, more efficient Ford operations in Belgium and the UK. Struggling under an ever-increasing burden of losses in the early 1980s, the Ford plant on the Marina closed its gates for the last time on Friday, July 13th 1984 - some 67 years after the company had first begun motor production on the banks of the Lee.

Says McSweeney: "It was a huge economic blow to the workforce but it was also a psychological blow to Cork. Cork was proud of Ford - we saw it as an Irish company with a very large American branch and, for my contemporaries, there's a certain nostalgia for it.

"But for anyone under 35, they know nothing about Ford and probably care less - there's no question of them looking back, which is what Henry Ford's philosophy was; he didn't have contempt for the past, he simply believed you can only produce change by looking forward."

Are You Still Below? The Ford Marina Plant, Cork 1917-1984 by Miriam Nyhan, published by Collins, will be launched by Sean Óg Ó hAilpín at The Clarion Hotel, Lapps Quay, Cork on Thursday at 7pm