offalyhistoryblog

In the week of 23 December 1978, the Tullamore Tribune published an interview with the late John Carroll on the history of Salts/Tullamore Yarns. He had been with the company for its full forty years in Tullamore. The Tribune noted that John Carroll might be called the ‘Bill Riley of Tullamore Yarns’ – which means, as fans of the popular television serial of that time ‘The Brothers’ will realise, that he came into the firm at the bottom, without any special advantages, and worked his way up on merit alone. He made his appearance on the scene as a young teenager, helping to unpack and clean the machinery arriving for setting up of the Salts textiles factory in 1938. By 1978 he was works manager. He took a keen interest in Tullamore and was for many years a director of Tullamore Credit Union.

Salt’s spinning mill, erected on the site of old Tullamore jail, was the largest employer in Tullamore for about thirty years. Prior to its completion in 1938 there had been no major factory in the town from with the loss of the Goodbody tobacco factory due to a fire in 1886.  Any tradition the town had in textiles was gone since the 1820s. A linen factory building had been constructed in 1754 but was out of use by 1800. Salts decided on Tullamore after making a short list of suitable towns, interviewing the town council and satisfying themselves in regard to the site at the old jail which had been largely destroyed in 1922 during the civil war. Nothing could have been done without the support of the townspeople, William Davin, TD and the Minister for Industry and Commerce Sean Lemass.

    The owner of the new woollen mill was Salts of Saltaire in Yorkshire and employed 3,500 workers in the textile industry. Salts (Ireland) Ltd. was established in 1937 to supply the requirements of the Irish market in worsted yarns both weaving and hosiery. The leading figure on Salts’ side was R. W. Guild who was from Scotland. At about the same time as  Guild was establishing Salts (Ireland) William Dwyer, the founder of the Cork-based Sunbeam Wolsey,  was working to  develop his own plant.