Richard Lord:RICHARD LORD, who has died aged 93, transformed the Irish textile industry, building an empire that employed over 2,500 workers in a chain of factories which spanned the country from Cork to Mayo.
A former director of Sunbeam Wolsey in Cork, he was managing director and chairman of Industrial Yarns and Seafield Gentex, a conglomerate of major spinning works that made profits for the shareholders, while providing jobs when they were scarce.
Arguably, the sheer breadth of his influence is unparalleled in the Irish industrial landscape. With companies in Cork, Youghal, Westport, Athlone, Ardee, Dundalk, Balbriggan, Dublin, Roscrea and Bray, the group under his command had a turnover of £1.5 million, an impressive performance in the 1960s. A scratch golfer, he was captain of Cork Golf Club in 1945 and was still playing half a century later when he became an honorary member of the club. Up to his late 80s, he played in a weekly fourball.
He was a trustee of the Cheshire Homes charity. A keen follower of the Munster rugby team, his granddaughter, Jessica, is married to Ronan O’Gara.
Richard was born in Cork and he went to Clongowes Wood College, but left school early on the death of his father. Having worked with Munster Laundries, he joined Sunbeam Wolsey, a major woollen plant founded in Blackpool, Cork, by William Dwyer, whose daughter, Doreen, he married.
As a high-flying executive by the mid-1940s, a depressed period in Ireland’s economic history, he saw an opportunity to expand the family business, based largely on wool, by diversifying into synthetic fabrics.
Offered free land by the urban council on the western entrance to Youghal in the hope of creating employment, he set up the Seafield factory producing synthetic fabrics from rayon. Based on its success, he followed up with Blackwater Cottons, producing dresses and garments for the Irish market.
Fattened by an influx of new industry, including Youghal Carpets employing 800 local people, Youghal burgeoned and by the 1960s it was the only town in Ireland with full employment.
Highly disciplined in his personal life, he is remembered by a fellow director as “a brilliant business tactician, a very good strategic thinker, a very hard worker but fair-minded and honourable, as straight as a die. There was a right way to do the job – no short cuts. He led by example and would never ask you to do something he wouldn’t do himself. And he gave employment to a great many people who otherwise wouldn’t have had a chance.”
Predicting that the fragmented Irish textile industry was unlikely to survive once protective tariffs were removed by the Anglo-Irish Free Trade agreement, he set out to rationalise the business.
Embarking on a takeover spree, his first acquisition was Ardee Textiles in Co Louth, a cotton spinner employing 300, followed by Hampton Mills of Balbriggan (130 jobs), Dundalk Textiles (70), after which he took over English Calico (200), a UK company in Westport in Mayo.
His biggest coup was a takeover, euphemistically described as an amalgamation, of General Textiles of Athlone, leading to the formation of Seafield Gentex. Employing 500, the Westmeath company had Seán Lemass on its board and was involved in spinning, weaving, dyeing and finishing and the manufacture of bed linen.
In the late 1960s, Lord bought Beechlawn Knitting Mills in Dublin. In 1970, he master-minded the purchase of Trimproof Fabrics in Trim, Co Meath, which produced PVC and polyurethane coating for handbags and conveyor belts.
He also secured a 25 per cent share of Industrial Yarns in Bray, Co Wicklow. Adding garment manufacturers to his shopping list, he bought Milano Fashions of Dublin, and Rosemary Products in Roscrea. He then formed a joint venture with Gouldings for the extrusion and weaving of polypropylene fertiliser sacks.
In a dramatic shift of focus under his direction, the industry became export-oriented, ultimately generating 50 per cent of its turnover from exports and effectively extending the life of the Irish industry when it was in decline in Britain. He retired in the 1980s, as imports were flooding the markets and decimating the industry.
He is survived by his wife, Doreen and seven children – Judy (Daly) Tony, Mary (Inglis), Sally (Gleeson), Anne (Woodsend), Richard and Peter. His son John predeceased him.
Richard Lord: born January 17th ,1917; died May 6th, 2010