From the archives of Bob Montgomery, motoring historian
MOVING STATUE! Irish motor racing celebrates its centenary this weekend with the running of the annual Phoenix Park Motor Races. If there is a symbol most closely identified with motor racing in Dublin's Phoenix Park, it s the Phoenix Monument.
Occupying a location along Chesterfield Avenue, the main road which bisects the Park, the monument has led a somewhat moveable existence as a result of motor racing.
This began when it had its sides removed in 1903 at the time of the Speed Trials which were part of "Automobile Fortnight in Ireland" when the first ever event was run there. This allowed the competing cars which raced against the clock two at a time, to safely pass either side of it as they sped down the road.
This piece of Park history would have been lost but for the fortuitous discovery by the author of a photograph in a Dublin antique shop some years ago, which clearly shows the "modified" monument during the 1903 trials.
The Phoenix Monument's next alteration, in 1929, was even more significant - it was decided to move the entire structure to facilitate the running of the first Irish International Grand Prix in the Park. It was dismantled and re-erected on a site outside the main entrance of Áras an Uachtaráin.
There it stayed until more recent times when, as part of a major restoration of the Phoenix Park to something nearer it original state, the monument was returned to its first home on Chesterfield Avenue.
The Phoenix Monument has other significant associations with Irish motor sport. In 1929 the Royal Irish Automobile Club commissioned a solid silver trophy for its newly instituted Grand Prix race. The trophy was to be an exact replica of the Phoenix Monument, standing just 20 inches high.
On each of the three years during which the Irish Grand Prix was run, a new trophy was made, the winners being Boris Ivanowski, Rudolph Caracciola and Norman Black.
But, the association does not end there. One man, Walter Sexton, was more than any other responsible for the successful running of the Irish Grand Prix. To mark his contribution, the RIAC commissioned a smaller replica of the monument which was duly presented to Sexton. Following his death, his widow presented the trophy back to the RIAC which renamed it the Walter Sexton Memorial Trophy and awarded it for an annual speed competition.
That trophy, of course, has become with the passage of time, Irish motor sport's most famous award, won by many of the greatest names in the sport.
REMEMBERING MIKE: Mike Hawthorn, the 1958 Formula 1 World Drivers Champion for Ferrari, was a man who loved to race in Ireland. The more laid-back approach he found here and the wonderful Irish road circuits of the 1950s appealed to Mike.
Having scored one of his most significant early successes here in winning the Leinster Trophy Race on the Wicklow Circuit, he returned whenever he could.
After winning the World Championship in 1958, he announced his retirement from motor racing. In January 1959 he came to Dublin for a charity motor racing film show and met with officials of the Irish Motor Racing Club to survey different possible circuits in the Phoenix Park. With Mike's help, the club settled on a new circuit which was first used in 1959.
Just a week after his Dublin, Mike died in a road accident, a tragedy which stunned Irish motor enthusiasts. Fittingly the new circuit was named the Hawthorn Circuit and was in use in various forms right up until 1991.