Motoring in Ireland is, more or less, celebrating its centenary. John Brophy visits the RIAC and casts an eye over 100 years of the horseless carriage.
It's almost a secret, but motoring in Ireland is celebrating its centenary. The Irish Automobile Club, now the Royal Irish Automobile Club, was founded in 1901, on the day Queen Victoria died. However, many of the centenary events fell victim to the Foot and Mouth restrictions last year.
Thankfully there will be more reason for vintage celebration as next year will see the centenary of the famed Gordon Bennett race and the speed trials in the Phoenix Park.
The mine of information on Irish motoring history is Bob Montgomery, author, publisher and librarian of the RIAC archive. Its official name is the Guinness Seagrave Archive, commemorating two motoring Guinness brothers, Sir Algernon and Kenelm, and Sir Henry Seagrave, holder of the land speed record.
Bob Montgomery is a true enthusiast, with an encyclopaedic knowledge of motoring history, and a deep desire to show how important motoring has been in our social history, and also how great is the contribution made by Irishmen to motoring internationally.
He has spent a lifetime working for Castrol, where he met many of the pioneers of the Irish motor industry, and realised the importance of these men and of collecting and recording their deeds in words and pictures. So, besides having a track record, literally, in racing saloon cars, Bob has set about chronicling the pioneers of motoring.
His own publishing company is called Dreoilín - and the books are indeed the size of a wren. They're just 32 pages of A5, but packed with pictures and detail of a days out at rallies or steam threshing.
In the RIAC archive the books are much larger tomes of motoring information: the core collection was donated by Wilf Fitzsimmons of the Talbot Press and the Education Company and there are bound volumes going backbefore the dawn of the motor car and into cycling historyin the 1880s.
It's notable that many of the early racing cyclists became enchanted with the lure of speed; progressing on to motor bikes and then cars, often becoming both drivers and garage proprietors.
Two events in Irish motor history deserve special mention, according to Montgomery. The first is the 1903 Gordon Bennett race, the first run on an enclosed circuit and the prototype of all Grand Prix racing thereafter. It was won by a Mercedes.
Besides the famed race, which is commemorated in the monument at the Moat of Ardscull, the meeting also saw speed trials in the Phoenix Park, when the world speed record was set at 85 mph. There were also speedboat trials in Cork harbour and a hill climb in Tralee, which was won by Charlie Rolls, co-founder of the ultimate brand-name. The event did much to boost national pride and the organisation and stewarding attracted much praise, especially since the Paris-Madrid race of the same year had so many casualties.
Montgomery has spent three years researching and detailing the events of that week, in a book considerably larger than those in the Dreoilín imprint.
The other event that Montgomery highlights in Irish motoring history is the Phoenix Park races. He says that motorsport also did much for Ireland between 1929 and 1931. We had come out of the War of Independence and the Civil War, and there were big religious festivities for the centenary of Catholic emancipation.
But on the secular side, the Phoenix Park races received lavish praise and the races were a huge sporting occasion.
However, with the change of government in 1932, Sean T O'Kelly, who later became known as the prime resident of Phoenix Park, said he was not interested in furthering a rich man's sport.
New historical material is donated to the library all the time. Even as we are chatting, a visitor arrives. No ordinary visitor he, but an uncle of Bob Geldof, with a menu from the Plaza Ballroom (which was on Middle Abbey Street on the site later occupied by the Adelphi Cinema). It's autographed by many of the participants of the very race we've been talking about, including the winner, Ivanovsky, a White Russian prince.
But the motoring connection goes even further: Grandpa Geldof, it is revealed, came from Belgium and was chef de cuisine in London for the Royal Automobile Club in Piccadilly, even before it moved to its current home in Pall Mall.
Bob Montgomery gets many memorabilia - they even have the stewards' badges from the 1903 races. He also gets many enquiries especially from Australia, about early motoring and dealerships, and he can use his specialist knowledge to help date early photographs, and even tell who owned the cars in the picture.
Now, as part of the centenary celebrations, the RIAC is examining how it can reorganise its premises to convert the Racquets court into a museum.
Sited just opposite the Mansion House, it's right on the tourist trail, and would be a wonderful showcase for very interesting people who have almost dropped out of official history.
Meanwhile, people can always reminisce with some of Montgomery's books. They are a lovely short read if you are waiting for someone, or even if, heaven forbid, you're stuck in traffic.
Many Irishmen have made a huge contribution to motoring throughout its history and have left their mark on the current motoring world.
Obviously Henry Ford of Ballinscarthy springs to mind.
John Boyd Dunlop was born in Scotland, but his first factory was in 67 Upper Stephen Street in Dublin. He later became chairman of Todd Burns, the famed household furnishers.
Dunlop's grandson was a surgeon who helped to found the Central Remedial Clinic.
There are two Guinness brothers, Sir Algernon and Kenelm, and Sir Henry Seagrave, holder of the land speed record. Their names are recorded in the official title of the RIAC archive.
There is also the great Harry Ferguson, who pioneered farm tractors, but also did a lot for motor racing.
Bob Montgomery also has detailed the great driver Leslie Porter, who joined the Royal Flying Corps and died in action in 1917.
But his own favourite is Richard J Mecredy, champion cyclist, pioneer of Dunlop's tyres on bicycles, and founder editor of both The Motor News and The Irish Cyclist, and a major source for the history of Irish motoring.
A man of foresight was RJ: when he founded The Motor News in 1900, there were only 50 cars in Ireland.
Car registration was introduced at the end of 1903 - when the civil servants allocated the numbers, they simply listed the counties alphabetically and allocated numbers, starting with Antrim and IA. The letters G and Q were not used, since they might be confused with C and O. When they got to Meath, they simply turned the letters round, and so Meath has AI.
Spare numbers were allocated according to demand, and Z was added. And so the list continued until 1987, with all Irish numbers having either a Z or an I in them.
The most successful car maker in Ireland was Chambers of Belfast, 1904 1929, which specialised in having the gearbox inside the back axle. Four models survive. They were beaten by the onset of the mass production methods pioneered by Ford.
Castleblayney, Co Monaghan, was home of the Shamrock project, around 1953. It was a huge gas-guzzler. Publicity was better than production, which never reached double figures.
And after that, we had John Delorean. Enough said: the car is now a collector's item.