1930's Cork boomed with the introduction of tariffs during a period of global crisis

Our series counting down the decades of Ford’s century in Ireland reaches the 1930s, and at a time when industries across the world were failing, the Ford Marina plant went into overdrive.

It was a decade bookended by catastrophic global crises, but for Ford and Cork, the 1930s was largely a decade of economic stability and growth, when boom more often than not overcame the spectre of bust.

The stock market crash of October, 1929, triggered the Great Depression in Henry Ford’s American homeland, while for much of the 1930s, Ireland and its nearest neighbour were engaged in a damaging Anglo-Irish Trade War.