Vintage Limerick Car Race Poster from 1929-Irish Motor Racing Club Ltd

140.00

65cm x 50cm  Limerick

Vintage advertising poster advertising a car racing in Limerick in 1929 to be held around the city and organised by the Irish Motor Racing Club Ltd ,based in Foster Place Dublin.

People, like this writer, who do not even have a driving licence find it very difficult to understand the extraordinary interest in motor racing which has mushroomed over the last few years.

This newspaper and others have expanded coverage of the sport in a big way and that can only be partly explained by the fact that a young Irishman, Eddie Irvine, has made significant progress in the drivers’ championship and that Dubliner Eddie Jordan has a team competing in the constructors’ championship.

There is a very long and distinguished history of motor racing in Ireland, going back to the turn of the century and before. Irish motorists have contributed profoundly to the popularity of motor racing history. In this context, names like Dunlop and Ferguson immediately spring to mind.

The Belfast businessman John Boyd Dunlop first hit upon the idea of a pneumatic tyre when he was trying to entice his son to continue what he considered to be a healthy bicycling pursuit. When Dunlop’s tyres helped to wipe out all competition in a Belfast sports meeting in Easter 1889, the invention sparked an idea in the mind of a Dublin businessman called Harvey du Cros – a Huguenot who had fled Roman Catholic persecution in his native France to flee to, of all places, Dublin.

The Huguenot refugee had several distinctions. He was a boxing and fencing champion in his day and a founder member of Bective Rangers rugby club. Whether he would have been proud of the latter achievement today cannot be assessed. (Just a joke lads.)

He set up a factory for the manufacture of tyres in Stephen Street in Dublin just before the turn of the century and, in doing so, made an enormous contribution to the revolution of transport in the world.

The name of Dunlop remains synonymous with tyres, but, sadly, the name du Cros is seldom mentioned. Nevertheless he holds the major French decoration of Legion d’honneur.

Description

Additional information

Weight 5 kg
Dimensions 85 × 75 × 8 cm
Go to Top