New book on the history of well known Offaly company to be launched this week

A NEW book, “The Erin Story - Jackpot Ltd., Erin Peats Products Ltd., Erin Horticulture Ltd”, by John Molloy and Shay Garvey, compiled and edited by Anthony Dargan, a history in words and pictures - will be launched in Dooly’s Hotel, Birr, on Wednesday, August 7 at 7.30pm.

The book recounts the history of a local company which had its genesis in the late 1950s and which developed and grew over the years and is still operating to this day.

In its 142 pages the book is packed with history, memories and a huge range of photographs featuring many of the people of worked in the company over the years and will be a wonderful keepsake for anyone who had any connection with the company.

It is a story of how the community in Birr, in a time of mass emigration in the 1960’s, came together to create employment and keep young people at home. It’s a story of how the local community, along with other Irish investors, helped create a start-up business.

The book recalls that people in the US wanted to make peat pots and thought it would be best to do it in Ireland because of the availability of raw material and cheaper labour costs among other things. They came to Birr and met with a number of prominent local people and representatives of the UDC at the time and decided to go with the project.

A public meeting was held in the Marian Hall in Birr and over 100 local people attended. Most of those people along with many other locals, subscribed for shares in the new company and along with help from the IDA, that helped get the company up and running.

Over the years the company changed hands on a number of occasions and as time went on it had to diversify its range of products as well but it kept going and over 60 years later is still going.

The idea of writing a book on the history of the company first arose at a 50^th anniversary celebration of Erin following a conversation between John Molloy and Shay Garvey. John Molloy first started working in Erin in 1967 and retired after 48 years service. Shay's late father Owen Garvey had played a leading role in the company before his untimely death at an early age in 1974 and Shay himself always had an interest in industrial history, particularly, in writing the history of export led medium sized companies in the first 50 years since the founding of the state

When John retired in 2015 he told Shay he had the archives related to the early years of Jackpot Ltd./Erin Peat Products Ltd. in his possession and wondered whether it would be worth writing the history of the company. They began working on the story and got an early draft together. Covid then intervened and delayed progress. After compiling all their information, they decided they needed someone to edit and compile the material and approached Tony Dargan and he agreed to take on the project.

The result is the book that will be launched next Wednesday and anyone who had any involvement with Erin over the years will find it takes them on a real trip down memory lane and the book will be a real treasure for them.

Past employees, their families and friends are all welcome to go along to the launch in Dooly's Hotel on August 7^th.

They have all the information on the many people who invested in shares in the comapny when it started off and that will be available to look at for any one interested at the launch as well.