Dodge

Clare Champion 18 March 2005

The small man stood tall among all the ticker tapes. They were fluttering on the Broadway breeze. The section of lower Broadway known as the Canyon of Heroes was celebrating the small man. Sean T Ó Ceallaigh was the man. Mr President.

Sean T’s ticker tapes are commemorated by a granite strip in the sidewalk bearing his name. you’ll find Charles Lindbergh there; Winston Churchill, Pope John Paul II, Neil Armstrong, the Shah of Iran, Theodore Roosevelt, Howard Hughes, General McArthur and many more are ticker taped to the same sidewalk.

Not that Sean T was looking at the side walk as the ticker tapes fluttered. A fleet of the finest cars travelling northward from the Bowling Green to City Hall caught Sean T’s eye. He always had an eye for automobiles - big bumpered ones from Motor City were his favourite.

‘Twas no wonder - Sean T eyed American cars for the first time in 1920 when he accompanied Eamon de Valera on a fundraising tour of the States for Sinn Féin.

Big was beautiful for the small man, he just had to have an American automobile. Small man - big car. One day, some day. It sustained Sean T.

The future Mr President got his wish in the late thirties. Not for the small man Britain’s best, be they big Rolls Royces, Austins or anything. He had Motor City on his mind that made its way to Detroit and picked a Packard off the production line. It was one of the few Packards to be parked up outside Dáil Éireann.

Sean T then parked up in the Phoenix Park - the Packard was presidential enough for Áras an Uachtarán, for two years at any rate. Sean T’s presidential Packard purred from 1945 to ’47 before the small man traded her in. Small man - bigger car.

Sean T moved up in class, buying a maroon coloured Plymouth Dodge manufactured by the Chrysler Corporation in Motor City. “Fluid Drive” the back bumper boasted. Twenty five horse power, tear drop and torpedo in design. It even had a radio.

Dodge was big and presidential. Sean T’s touring car and there was nothing he liked better than getting behind her wheel. Better drive than be driven was Sean T’s mantra.

Sean T drove his Dodge around Dublin for 12 years - what matter if it guzzled petrol on short journeys or on long open roads. Sean T didn’t mind - the state was paying for the privilege by picking up the touring tab.

The tab closed when Sean T’s period in the park closed in 1959. what to do for the Dodge that was part of the park as much as the Áras itself?

Sean had to go, but he felt the Dodge should stay and approached an old ally in Eamon de Valera. “What about the Dodge Dev,” was Sean T’s tack. “You were born in America, interested in having an American automobile for yourself.”

Dev was a Detroit man too - he liked the luxury limousines he saw when touring America in 1920 and ’21 and on his own home town ticker tape parade down Broadway boulevard in ’48. It became Dev’s Dodge for an undisclosed sum.

The Dodge was soon dodging pot holes on its way to Clare.

August 15 was once the biggest day of the year in Clare. Girls in glad rags, guys the same. The County Agricultural Show in Ennis Showgrounds. Showtime for everyone, Dev Day, Dodge Day, all in one.

The Fianna Fáil faithful flocked around Dev and his Dodge. Maroon no more - presidential black from which Dev would emerge. It was the best dressed car every year. No contest really. How could anyone compete against Dev and his Dodge? It stole the County Show every time.

It was the same on Dev’s motorcade tours through Clare. He’d always drive over Lansdowne Bridge on his way there. Kilkishen man Stephen Donnellan would perform the Clare shout to signal the Dodge and Dev back to the Banner.

“The Dodge was part of the history of Dev’s visits to Clare. It’s what people remember, especially young people of the time,” says county librarian Noel Crowley. As he talks he logged on to the library website and views a piece of 8mm film. It’s Dev and his Dodge in Clare. Dev and his Dodge meeting their people.

Noel knows the Dodge like no other. Long after Dev was gone, he was responsible for bringing the Dodge back to Clare. “It was like bringing it home really,” he says, even though he thought long and hard before bringing it home.

“Back in about ’83 or ’84 I got word from Maureen de Valera that she wanted to give the car as an addition to the de Valera Library and Museum. My first reaction was ‘I’m a librarian, what am I going to do with a two ton Dodge’. To be honest I sat dumb for a while, not doing much about it.

“The next thing was that Maureen passed away and I got a phone call from her niece Anne de Valera - she told me that in her will Maureen had specified that she would like the Dodge to go to Clare and in some way be linked with the de Valera Library.

“I went to Dublin, going to de Valera’s house in Blackrock and there was the car - it hadn’t moved for twelve years. It was sitting there with four flat tyres. Even though it looked a bit lonely there, it had a sense of history.”

Noel’s mind was made up - Dodge was coming home.

Mechanics went to work on Dodge - putting air in the tyres, oil in the engine and much more. They even got the radio working again.

Dodge hadn’t moved in 12 years - when she moved out on to Cross Avenue in Blackrock she was supposed to stay going all the way to Ennis.

It was a hush, hush operation. The de Valera clan didn’t want publicity, the Clare Library Service was the same. Publicity could come later, but Dev’s Dodge had a reputation that went before her on the road.

“The gasket was gone,” remembers Noel, “so the lads decided to cut a gasket by using a cornflakes box. They assured me it would work. The engine over heated after a few miles, so the mechanics had to pull into a garage and store it there overnight.

“Some fella working in the garage had a friend in the Independent and there was a picture of Dev’s car in the paper the following day.”

Dev was big news again - the Clare coup was known to all. Still, Noel Crowley didn’t know what he was going to do with the car. Clare was her new home, but where in Clare?

O’Sullivan and Hansbury Motors housed it for a few days - the fire station for a few years. This pride of the Clare fleet deserved better and got better.

“In 1989 when planning Ennis 750 I approached Syntex to see if they would be interested as their contribution to Ennis to fund the building of a garage for the car. Syntex agreed and the Dodge had a home where it would be on display.”

It’s been on display ever since. President Mary Robinson officially unveiled the library’s novel piece of art in 1992 and it’s been part of the library service ever since.

It was on the road later that year - there was no need for the Dodge to dodge potholes as it was the first car to drive down the Bunratty bypass. It was a lone outing, it was back to the storage cabinet for over 12 years until two weeks ago.

Dodge was on the move once more - this time to the Clare County Council mechanics yard where John McNamara and Senan McMahon went to work. They gave it an NCT like overhaul - even if vintage cars are exempt when it comes to this new rule of the road.

The road opens out before the Dodge this St Patrick’s Day. “It has to be a special occasion to allow her out,” says Noel.

“The Dodge is that special. It’s like the shovel Parnell used to turn the first sod on the West Clare Railway, the Spanish Armada door and the banner for the East Clare by-election that elected Dev in 1917. It’s a piece of art that we are very proud of.”

The piece of art that weighs in at two tons is ready for road.

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