Remembering the 1940 Athlone Woollen Mills fire

It was the defining moment for a generation in Athlone, a night that would live long in the memory of those who witnessed it.

And its implications echoed deeply through the town and region for years.

80 years ago last November, the Athlone Woollen Mills fire wreaked its horrible destruction on the town.

Located on the site of what is now the Radisson Blu Hotel, the Woollen Mills, established in 1859, was the backbone of the local economy.

It's difficult from this remove to capture the mood of despair and gloom that pervaded the town in the wake of the fire.

As a result of the blaze, between 400 and 500 people were out of work in the midst of the already-difficult economic environment of the Emergency.

A relief fund was established on foot of a meeting convened by Athlone UDC and in its appeal the organising committee described the event as “a national calamity” and said “The Athlone Woollen Mill, which, up to a week ago, employed some 500 workers, is now a mass of tangled machinery, while its operatives face the appalling prospects of dire poverty and destitution.”

The Relief Fund distributed aid at the rate of 50% of wages. The Irish Times had a national appeal which realised £4,000 and which was forwarded to Archdeacon Crowe of St Peter's.

Although it reopened in 1948, an employer and an industry that had been at the bedrock of Athlone economic life never truly recovered.

Not only did the aftershocks ripple through the socio-economic fibre of the area, the face of Athlone was also changed irrevocably; four landmark buildings were destroyed and at least twelve other properties badly damaged.

One newspaper described the scene thus: "More than twenty acres of wrecked buildings and smouldering debris... caused by a fire, which raced through the buildings, swept on by a sixty-mile-an-hour gale blowing down the Shannon ...[which] wrecked buildings, plant and valuable machinery which would cost more than half a million pounds to replace".

It was no exaggeration to say that for a time on the morning of November 12, 1940, much of the centre of Athlone was threatened by the inferno.

The drama began when the night watchman Kieran McGrath discovered a fire in the boiler house, around midnight on Monday, November 11, 1940, and sounded the alarm.

Garda T Gallagher and Garda WJ Gallagher responded to the emergency siren.

A huge operation was then put in place, with the Woollen Mills’ own small fire service initially rushing to the scene.

Athlone's military fire brigade (the town did not have a municipal brigade at the time) was then swiftly alerted. When the severity of the fire, exacerbated by the gale-force winds, became abundantly clear, assistance was soon sought from the Curragh Camp, Galway and Mullingar fire brigades.

The triple blast of the factory siren, which later saw service as the Gentex hooter, echoing long into the night signalled to the town’s people the severity of the situation.

Pat Watson, then a young boy witnessing the scene from a hill in Summerhill, had the sounds and sights emerging from the town fed the belief that some sort of emergency was underway.

As the fire-fighting efforts intensified, the great fear was that the proximity of the local gas works and the firefighters focused their efforts on diverting the flames away from the nearby facility.

For a time the flames threatened the gasometers in the gasworks.

To avoid danger, the authorities of the Gas Company emptied the gasometers by bringing the gas through a main to a part of the town unaffected by the fire and allowing it to escape.

Then, with a change in the wind, there were concerns the fire could spread to the centre of the town.

Eventually, in a desperate effort to halt its spread, army military engineers dynamited the Longworth Hall – then a hugely popular social venue on Northgate Street – Roslevin Girls Boarding School and a doctor's residence, thus saving much of the town from destruction.

The Longworth Hall crashed down, with a shuddering thud, 'smothering the flames', as one report explained.

This explosion shattered windows in buildings as far away as St Peter’s Square.

The Ritz Cinema, on the bridge, and many more in Church Street, Northgate Street and Custume Place had almost all their windows broken.

The local town hall, which survived, was nearby and the then Town Clerk was given three minutes to recover important documents.

A local doctor, William H. Coen, whose house was demolished, described how he was informed it was necessary to evacuate. And he was full of praise for the military whom he said entered his house “like a swarm of locusts” and carried his furniture to the nearby Ritz Cinema. Many local residents were evacuated as were guests in the nearby Central Hotel.

The fire was finally came under control on Tuesday but was still smouldering on Wednesday morning.

Northgate Street was cordoned off for over a week as insurance officials from the UK estimated the damages.

When the smoke cleared, the impact of the devastating fire became apparent.

Along with the destruction of the mills, Longworth Hall, the school and Dr Coen;s home, about a dozen families, who lived mainly in houses around the mills, were rendered homeless.

There was structural damage to other nearby properties including the Town Hall, Gore House, owned by the Sheffield family, and the photographic studio of Jack Simmons.

Buildings such as The Provincial Bank (now AIB), the Town Hall and the Methodist Church were only saved thanks to the work of the Army firefighters.

A major humanitarian mission also kicked into gear. A recently-formed Knights of Malta ambulance section organised the evacuation of elderly, children and those invalided from nearby houses to The Crescent ballroom, which had become a makeshift evacuation centre.

By Thursday morning workers started to clear the debris and the slow, painstaking work of rebuilding both the industry and the local economy began.