Urney Chocolates
Urney Chocolates was an Irish confectionery manufacturing business founded by the Gallagher family in County Tyrone, which once operated one of the largest chocolate factories in Europe. After being sold as a growing concern, ultimately to what would become Unilever, the factory closed in 1980. The brand was later operated by L.C. Confectionery Ltd., and is now handled by Hazelbrook Confectionery, based in County Kildare, Ireland.
History
Foundation and early years
Urney Chocolates was established in 1919 by Eileen Gallagher and her husband, Harry, at their home, Urney House, in the parish of Urney, County Tyrone. Harry Gallagher was employed as Crown Solicitor for County Donegal. In an effort to stem the tide of emigration from the area in the wake of WW1, Eileen Gallagher started a market garden on the grounds of the estate, and organised snowdrops and ivy leaves to be bound together as posies to be sent to Covent Garden market in London. The garden also supplied fruit and berries from which jams began to be made and the rectory cellar soon became the base of a thriving cottage industry.Having been refused a sugar allowance for a jam business, the only way to obtain a commercial quota was to diversity into confectionery manufacture, and as a result Gallagher began to produce small batches of raspberry fudge using the few domestic appliances available to her. The business was initially based in the back garden of Urney House. The expansion of the business picked up momentum, and within the first twelve months of operation the Gallagher's initial two casual helpers had risen to a staff of 20 people.
In 1920, about a year into production, a fire in the basement of Urney House burnt the building to the ground and brought production to a halt. In response, the Gallagher's built a bungalow and a small dedicated factory in which to resume business. An advertisement in The Irish Times dated 18 November 1921 announced the resumption of activities:
With the foundation of the new Irish Free State in 1922, Harry Gallagher's position as Crown Solicitor to County Donegal was dissolved and he directed his attentions to Urney Chocolates, forming a private limited company and installing himself as its chairman and managing director, whilst Eileen was established as director.
Urneys was the only chocolate manufacturer based in Ireland in the 1920s. Sourcing most of their supplies from Ireland, the company stressed this fact in their advertisements, and as a result their sales were strongest in what would become the Republic of Ireland. The business made little impact in Northern Ireland; a consignment of Urney chocolates being returned to the factory once marked with the message "We want no pope here" as part of the Protestant boycott of Catholic goods.
Situated on the United Kingdom side of the newly created Northern Ireland border, the company also fell foul of the customs duty of "sixpence a pound" which was imposed by the Irish Free State on imported chocolates, which had to be paid every time the products entered the Free State. After a second fire on the factory premises, the Gallaghers decided to move operations to Dublin rather than trying to rebuild in County Tyrone again.
Move to Tallaght
In 1924, the company moved to the disused WW1-era RAF airfield of Tallaght Aerodrome in the then-rural suburb of Tallaght, Dublin. The site had been handed over to the Irish Air Service in May 1922. Although ceasing to exist as a working airfield after 1924, the site continued to be marked as one on old maps and would receive infrequent planes landing in error as late as the 1940s.The Gallaghers' offered the original staff the choice of relocating with them, which was accepted by 25 female employees, a carpenter and two maintenance men. The surviving machinery was transported the 160 miles from Urney to Tallaght and new equipment acquired too. There was ample space onsite, and housing was provided to the workers who needed it. The women's hostel block of the former aerodrome, as well as officer's mess, became a temporary home for the Gallagher family, before they finally moved into the former hospital building, which was rechristened Urney House. For the initial six months while the factory was being established, the Irish Army remained onsite and assisted with the removal of unexploded ordnance which was still being found onsite.
The population of Tallaght village by the time Urneys relocated there was in the region of 300-400 people. Most families would eventually have a direct link with the factory through a family member working there. Some Urneys staff would travel each day from as far away as the County Wicklow towns of Blessington, Ballyknockan and Hollywood, as well as the suburbs of Dublin.
Attaining financial support in the initial stages proved difficult for the Gallaghers and they could not afford a freezing plant. As a result, production was shifted to night-time hours which were cooler whilst office work continued during the day. Electricity was introduced to the factory in 1926 with the installation of two second-hand 50kw DC generators which had previously been used to power the town of Thurles prior to the town's connection to the national grid. The generators provided the necessary power requirements until Tallaght was similarly connected, itself being a small rural village demanding less urgency.
A keen gardener, Harry Gallagher used the factory grounds to grow flowers and shrubs, and planted orchards, vegetable beds and beehives. By the early 1930s, the "military starkness of the old air base was replaced with lush greenery" according to Nolan, and people would travel out from Dublin city to admire the gardens. Gallagher also bred cattle and thoroughbred horses on the grounds and was a prominent figure in racing circles.
World War II
Although Ireland remained neutral during World War Two, the company had to adapt to sourcing their raw products from alternate markets. Whereas their pre-war supply of cocoa beans had come from West Africa, it had to now come from Brazil instead, and the glucose which was previously sourced in the Netherlands had to arrive instead from Canada as a derivative of maize. These transatlantic shipments could only venture as far as Portugal though, as any further north would have placed them in unnecessary danger. Instead, small coasters would collect the cargo in Lisbon and carry it back Ireland, still at risk of attack by enemy craft. Despite the dangers, the company never lost a consignment.During WWII, Britain banned the import of chocolate and confectionery from outside the sterling area, which was of huge benefit to Urneys as the Irish Free State remained within this closed market. The company began supplying chocolate crumb, couverture and fondant to British confectioners, who, unlike Ireland, did not have a plentiful supply of indigenous sugar and milk at their disposal owing to the war effort.
A second-hand German production line was purchased for the manufacture of milk chocolate blocks, brought over to Ireland and eventually replicated which doubled production. As Karen Nolan notes in her 2010 history of the company, Sweet Memories, the war period was a time of great expansion for the company:
Even as food rationing in Ireland took hold as the war progressed, Urneys was still able to function on its sugar allocation as its entitlement as a company had previously been based on its sugar requirement during its busiest period. In 1943, the company was among several firms found guilty of contravening Emergency laws by selling their excess supply to confectioners with lesser quotas.
Rationing continued in Britain after the war ended in 1945, and export of chocolate crumb and confectionery from Ireland continued profitably, reaching its peak in 1953. In 1954, however, rationing ended and the UK Milk Marketing Board advised to buy indigenous milk for the manufacture of chocolate crumb domestically.
Post-war
Having been limited to a small number of choices during the war, customers in Ireland and Britain turned away from Urney products after the war ended, opting instead for the far more exotic alternatives that had been denied to them until so recently. To diversify their market, Redmond and Harry Gallagher got in touch with two US importers of chocolate and started supplying them with wrapped assorted sweets and small, solid chocolate eggs. Urneys also began exporting chocolate crumb to Lowneys, a leading confectionery firm based in Massachusetts.In the 1950s, Pat O'Rorke from advertising agency O'Kennedy-Brindley created the slogan "Anytime is Urney Time", which subsequently "achieved cult status" all over Ireland that decade, according to Nolan, helping to promote the brand
In 1956, Eileen Gallagher, while travelling to the USA to visit her brother, smuggled a clutch of fertile White Holland turkey eggs back to Ireland. Gallagher successfully incubated the eggs and bred a large flock on three acres of the factory grounds, soon producing 3,000 birds a year for the Irish market. The livestock supplemented Urneys income during this time and also contributed to the wellbeing of staff who were served fresh turkey meat in the factory canteen at lunch-time and gifted oven-ready turkeys at Christmas.
Peak production
In 1958, food chemist Tommy Headon joined the company as business partner and managing director, while Redmond took over from his father as chairman. By the 1960s, Urney Chocolates and its subsidiaries were employing almost 1,000 workers, and the Urney facility was considered one of the largest chocolate factories in Europe.By September 1960, the company had bought out Devlins of Cork Street, Dublin, a toffee manufacturer that had "long been recognised as the largest children's confectionery company in Ireland", according to the Dictionary of Irish Biography. The premises, workers and specific products were all retained, including their famous 'sweet cigarettes' for children, packaged with collectable cigarette cards.
In 1961, Headon as managing director initiated the takeover of English confectionery firm Murch of Burnley, Lancashire. The Murch machinery was dismantled and relocated to the Tallaght plant. In 1963, Urneys sold a 50% share to W.R. Grace & Co., a New York conglomerate who already had a majority holding in Van Houten's Cocoa, the long-established Dutch manufacturer of cocoa and chocolate products. This new partnership had the potential to open up access to extensive marketing networks for Urneys in the US, Canada, Europe and South America. Shortly after the merger, the UK branch of the Van Houten factory moved production from Chesham, Buckinghamshire to Tallaght, from where products supplied the UK and Irish markets. In 1964, W.R. Grace & Co. also acquired HB Ice Cream, a well known Dublin firm. In 1966, managing director Headon died of a heart attack while walking in the Dublin Mountains, which was an unexpected blow to the company.
To prepare for entry into the European Common Market and to accommodate expansion onsite, £500,000 was invested into the modernisation of the Tallaght factory over a period of three years; two fifths of it coming from an Industrial Credit Company loan, a further £200,000 sourced from Urney resources, and the remaining £100,00 from a grant helping businesses adapt to the recently formed European Economic Community.
Harry Gallagher and Eileen, the original founders of the company, died in 1975 and 1976 respectively. In 1977, Redmond retired to Sagra in the east coast of Spain. The area of Tallaght also began to experience heavy development at this stage, with the construction of thousands of houses.