When Duthie Large were Athy's most important employer 

THE urban streetscape of the town of Athy is ever changing.

I was reminded of this recently when I came across some ephemeral items which related to Duthie Large & Co. Ltd. They were issued by the company in the early 1900s to promote its business.

Shown here are two of these attractive pieces, probably issued at the height of the Edwardian period. The plain, undecorated reverse sides are for use as ink blotters.

For those of a younger ‘ink blotters’ may be a bit of a mystery. Blotting paper is a thick paper especially made to absorb excess ink when writing with a fountain pen.

For my generation, the ink pot was accompanied by a fountain pen and a blotter was always close at hand. I am often struck, when receiving correspondence from my peers, of the quality of the penmanship from people who are now well into their eighties.

The ‘blotter’ would have been handed out free to customers of the business, and presumably the company ordered these ink blotters in bulk. The blotters were printed in New York and the two examples illustrated here are under the titles ‘When the Airship Flies’ and ‘When the polite man gives up his seat’.

Duthie Larges had an extensive premises fronting onto Leinster Street, as well as commodious buildings extending back up Chapel Lane. An early article published in the Nationalist just before Christmas 1900 described Christmas shopping in Athy, writing of the company as doing ‘a big business in the foundry and ironworks trade’, they have in stock a great variety of every class of agricultural implements. They also have on hand all classes of machinery and agricultural implements which would well repay inspection by the farming community’.

I was fortunate in the early years of the ‘Eye on the Past’ to interview Jack Murphy of Convent View, Athy who spent much of his working life in Duthie Larges. When I interviewed Jack, almost 30 years ago, he was already in his 10th decade.

Jack first started working for Duthie Larges as a bicycle mechanic in or about 1919. After a while, he moved to work with Jackson Brothers when they started their garage and bicycle business on Leinster Street. He lost a finger as a result of an accident at work, and to add insult to injury, it also cost him his job, resulting in his ultimate return to Duthie Larges.

In the 1920s and onwards Duthie Larges was an important employer in south Kildare at a time when the only alternative to such employment was in brick yards or Minch Nortons.

The busy workshops turned out machinery and farm equipment while the supply and repair of bicycles was an activity as busy, even if not as lucrative as the modern-day sale and repair of motor vehicles. A moulding department, carpentry shop, garage and bicycle shops were some of the main departments to be found in Duthie Larges in those days.

Skills abounded with bicycle mechanics, garage mechanics, blacksmiths and pattern moulders working side by side in the huge Duthie Large complex. Prior to the coming of the Asbestos Factory in 1936, Duthie Larges was the largest employer in the Athy area.

Perhaps a lesser-known fact of the history of the firm is that Duthie Larges cast in iron the garda station plaques which were placed above the entrance doors of each new Garda Station after 1922.

The plaque, derived from the cap badge of the Garda Siochana, was designed by John Francis Maxwell, an art teacher in the Blackrock and Dun Laoghaire Technical School, while Herbert Painting, the assistant principal of Athy Technical School and a teacher of art, made the mould from which the castings were made.

By the time Jack left his work bench, retiring in 1979, neither the Large nor Duthie families were still involved in the business, even though the name remained a landmark on the commercial scene of Athy until its closure in the early 1980s.

The next time you see a vintage tractor, or a piece of antique farming equipment, cast a quick look and you might be rewarded with the sight of an old Duthie Large badge proudly displayed.