‘Harrington’s are here!’
We got a surprise last week when an article appeared in the local newspaper, the Echo, ‘Cork city factory had its own fire brigade’ mentioning our late grandfather. He had worked at the Harrington’s paint factory on the Commons Road in Blackpool, Cork, as an engineer and a fire officer. With this month marking the 20th anniversary of his passing in 2004, it was a joy for us, his family, to read an article about him in ‘da paper’. The author, Pat Poland, was, according to the feature, 18 years old when he did his first real “summer job” in the factory and was introduced to Jack Manning. He detailed many of the stories we’d heard growing up, like when my grandfather along with the Harrington’s team fought a fire at the old Opera House in Cork on December 12th 1955, which was the night my mother was born and the big Sutton’s fire on the South Mall. The author had interviewed my grandfather weeks before he passed away and noted how indebted to him he was for his insights into the origins and development of the Harrington and Goodlass Wall (HGW) Works Fire Brigade. Those stories helped Pat write a book accounting his time with Harrington’s fire team and later his job at the Cork Fire Brigade.
Jack Manning is forth from the right in the white lab coat and dark rimmed glasses
