A trip to Belfast held key to hope

A chara, – On reading Cormac Moore’s piece on the introduction of the customs boundary (News Review, April 1st), I was prompted to recall a report in The Motor News on January 5th, 1929, of a trip to Belfast the previous week by members of the Irish Motor Bus & Coach Owners’ Association.

The purpose of their trip was to attend a lunch in Belfast’s Grand Central Hotel hosted by the Ulster Motor Coach Owners’ Association. They travelled in a new “sleeper” coach of Furey’s Tours, planned to run on overnight services between Dublin and Cork. The party included Senator Seán Milroy and RJP Mortishead, a prominent labour leader. The event was described as “a demonstration of the coach and its capabilities, and a meeting of bus people from each side of the Irish border to discuss the problem of the customs line and their mutual interests”.

Following the customary toasts to the King and to the prosperity of both states, Mr Mortishead proposed “The Prosperity of Irish Transport”, saying that he looked “forward to the day when Transport Ministries in Northern Ireland and the Free State would join to solve the common problems of both areas”. In response, James McCrea of the Belfast Omnibus Company declared that “the first business of everyone engaged in the bus business was to eliminate the Customs barrier, which experience had shown him blocked the way to effective development of tourist traffic as well as co-operation between bus owners in North and South.”

It would seem that back in 1929 Irish bus operators had more common sense and a better shared vision of Ireland than many of their political counterparts. – Is mise,