Establishment of Ford created new era in Cork 100 years ago

The decision by Henry Ford to expand into Ireland and the county of his ancestors would transform Cork’s industrial landscape forever, writes John Dolan.

Every journey starts with a single step.

For motoring mogul Henry Ford, the step he took on Tuesday, April 17, 1917 — 100 years ago this year — was the beginning of a remarkable journey, both for his burgeoning company and for the land of his ancestors: Cork.

That day, Henry Ford & Son was incorporated as a limited company in Ireland under the Companies Acts of 1908 and 1913, with a registered office at 36, South Mall, and plans followed to build an enormous factory in Cork city which would have an iconic, single line address — The Marina.

It was a decision that would transform the industrial, social, and financial landscape of the city for the rest of the 20th century, and continues to reverberate to this day.

Ford, who was 53 at the time, had founded his motor company 14 years earlier, in Michigan.

Evidence that it remained very much a family firm came in September, 1919, when the Irish firm’s board of directors was unveiled — naming Henry, his wife Clara and their 23-year-old son Edsel, as well as trusted advisors Percival Perry, head of Ford of Britain, and R.J. White, a solicitor.

When Henry decided to expand his flourishing business interests into Europe, Cork and Ireland were not obvious choices, and he met opposition from senior management — but for Henry, this was personal, as much as business. He wanted to reward the land of his forefathers.

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In his own words, he hoped that the new Ford plant “would start Ireland along the road to industry”.

Henry’s father, William Ford, had emigrated from Ballinascarthy in County Cork with his parents in 1847 during the Famine. Henry also had links to Cork city on his mother’s side.

“My ancestors came from Cork, and that city, with its wonderful harbour, had an abundance of fine industrial sites,” reflected Henry many years later. “There was, it is true, some sentiment in it.”

A report on the formation of Henry Ford & Son in the Cork Examiner in April, 1917, stated: “The object of the company is to carry on the business of manufacturers of all kinds of machinery, agricultural and other implements, engines, motor cars, aeroplanes and airships and shipbuilders.”

On that same page was a report summing up Ireland’s malaise at the time. The Irish Parliamentary Party published a dossier on the country’s industrial woes which “supplies as complete an indictment as could be desired of the so-called paternal system of Government to which this country is subjected.”

Ford was about to drive a coach and horses — or rather a modern version of that — through the malaise.

Evidence of that “paternal system of Government” came on April 27, 1917, when the Examiner reported that Ford’s Cork plans “had attracted the jealous notice of vested interests in England”. The article also praised the way Ford paid high wages, made large profits and still managed to sell cheap cars.

Not for the first time, the people of Ireland must have given thanks that Ford’s ancestors had come from Cork, and not Coventry, Cardiff or Clydebank.

Henry, who was born in Michigan in 1863, became one of the industrial giants of his age, as the driven and ambitious innovator and businessman who brought motoring to the masses.

His expansion into Ireland came at a difficult time. Just 11 days before the company was registered, America announced it was entering World War I on the side of Britain and her allies.

By the time the Ford plant became fully operational in Cork in 1919, Europe was emerging from the effects of that catastrophic war.

Ireland was largely an agricultural nation and the Fordson tractors built in Cork in those early years were the lifeblood of the Irish production line.

However, the factory also produced motor cars down the decades, including the iconic Model T — the last one ever produced by Ford anywhere in the world rolled off the Cork production line in 1927.

In addition, the Cork factory produced all the other iconic Ford vehicles that were sold in Europe from the 1930s right up to the 1980s, including the Model A, the Model Y, the Prefect, Anglia, Escort, Cortina, and Sierra.

By the time the factory closed in 1984, it had brought benefits to almost every household and family in Cork city. By 1930, it was employing 7,000, making it the second largest employer in the Free State, after the railways.

An estimated 20,000 people obtained employment at the Marina between 1917 and 1984 and many more got jobs at the Dagenham plant in England.

At times, the numbers employed at the Marina accounted for 8% of Cork city’s entire workforce.

Today, the Ford company has an annual revenue of $150 billion and has sold more than 350 million cars — and counting. Cork, and Ireland, was a major step in a journey that continues today and into the future.