A former Tipperary goalkeeper has recalled the lifelong friendships forged playing hurling with an East Clare chipboard factory that provided vital employment for hundreds of workers for more than 50 years.
Tipperary netminder, Séamus Shinners, was an intercounty opponent of legendary Clare custodian Seamus Durack.
However, the two Chipboard Limited sales representatives united outfield to help the company capture a coveted All-Ireland Interfirm Hurling title in 1975 and became friends.
Within 24 hours of lining out in opposing goals in the 1974 Clare versus Tipperary Munster SHC on a Sunday afternoon, they were back on their travels for All-Plast the following day.
Chipboard Limited, Scariff, participated in the Shannon League against companies in Shannon in the sixties and seventies.
After winning a few Shannon League titles, Chipboard Limited won the Munster SHC inter-firm title in 1974 and the All-Ireland crown the following May.
Chipboard Limited used to train in Dr Daly Park, Tulla as Scariff didn’t have a senior hurling team at the time. Mr Shinners believes playing regular Shannon League matches provided good training and match practice for the team.
He recalled Ned Doyle, father of Clare All-Ireland winner Liam Doyle, and a key player for the chipboard team, hurled with the Banner in the fifties. His brother, Dano also played for Clare in the sixties.
One of the highlights of Mr Shinners’ hurling career was when Chipboard Limited captured the All-Ireland Inter-Firm Hurling title in May 1975 beating Smithwicks, Kilkenny on a 3-16 to 5-7 scoreline.
His work colleague Clare custodian Seamus Durack from Feakle, who was playing in the forwards, inspired the Clare side by scoring 1-5 in the ’74 decider at Bansha, Tipperary, which was delayed until the following year.
Tipperary sub goalie, Séamus Shinners produced a man of the match display at midfield curbing Kilkenny All-Star Liam “Chunky” O’Brien.
Kilkenny All-Star goalie, Noel Skehan was the only one of the three goalkeepers who lined out in his usual position.
The Clare Champion’s match report credits Seamus with producing “one of the finest displays of midfield hurling seen at the venue for some time”.
Sean Dooley started as Mr Shinners’ marker but after ten minutes the losers’ mentors switched Liam O’Brien to this sector. However, this didn’t deter Shinners who was in superb form.
He was ably assisted by Clare football captain Teddy Murphy from Kilmihil. The Clare side, who led by five points at half time after playing with the aid of a fresh breeze were rocked after ten minutes when their centre back and captain, Paddy Flemming was sidelined through injury.
With ten minutes remaining, the large Chipboard Limited supporters went wild when Scariff’s Gerry Nugent rattled the net for their third goal to seal a three-point win.
Born in Newport in December 1945, Mr Shinners attended Newport National School before he went to Limerick CBS.
On July 6, 1964, the 18 year-old joined Chipboard Limited straight out of Limerick CBS after he was approached on the back of his hurling school success.
His first wages were six pounds and ten shillings, which left him outside the tax bracket. Following an increase a month later to seven pounds a week, he became a taxpayer.
In 1964, he was part of the Tipperary panel as sub goalkeeper that won their first Munster U-21 Hurling Championship, playing between the posts in 1965 All-Ireland final, which Wexford won, and in 1966 when Limerick emerged victorious in the Munster championship.
In 1964, he was a member of the Limerick CBS team that captured the coveted Harty Cup and All-Ireland title, which was the first Harty Cup crown for a Limerick school in 33 years.
Playing Harty Cup for three years, he hurled with future Limerick All-Ireland winners Eamon Cregan and Eamon Grimes.
After helping Tipperary defeat Dublin in the 1966 All-Ireland Intermediate hurling final, he was immediately switched on to the senior panel where he remained as sub keeper to John O’Donoghue until 1970.
Dropped from the Tipperary panel in 1970, the father-of-three was recalled in 1973 and was a sub when Limerick defeated Tipperary with a disputed point from a Richie Bennis sixty-five in a thrilling Munster SHC final.
He played with Tipperary in 1974, ’75 and ’76 and then hurled with Galway in 1979 until 1980, winning a Railway Cup medal with two provinces – Connacht in 1980 and Munster in 1976.
He played football with Tipperary in 1968 when they were beaten in the Munster semi-final by Kerry who went on to contest the All-Ireland final. His club Newport were more renowned for the big ball winning two Tiperary junior football championships in 1966 and in 1970 when he was captain. There was no dedicated sales office in the company when he joined, the company had sales representatives and a sales manager but no sales person.
A position was created for Mr Shinners where he remained until he left in the summer of 1981.
“Hurling directed me to Chipboard Limited in Scariff. Winning the All-Ireland Interfirm hurling title was a significant achievement. There is nothing like winning an All-Ireland with people you work with or go to school with,” he recalled.
A month after he joined the company, he played hurling with the team against the Portlaw Tannery factory in Portlaw, Waterford.
“We had a great time playing hurling up until 1975 when interfirm phased out when factories closed at a time the economy was on its knees. The late Marie McInerney was a wonderful supporter of the factory hurling team,” he said.
“Interfirm hurling was very strong in Ireland during the sixties and seventies. Daily papers published regular match reports. It involved a lot of intercounty hurlers. If an intercounty hurler went to Dublin they could get a job straight away with McInerney Builders.
“I became secretary of the Chipboard Limited hurling team for many years succeeding Marie McInerney. I kept driving the hurling team. Chipboard Limited had great hurlers from East Clare. The company had a very active social club where the hurling team was formed. Staff had a great social life with a big Christmas party each year and excursions in the Spring. Chipboard Limited had a superb hurling team.”
Playing hurling together fostered friendships for Mr Shinners and his wife, Chrissie, with his former work colleagues.
Mr Shinners recalled there was great camraderie and banter around hurling, particularly when he used to print a sheet with the team chosen by the selectors in the stores on the Tuesday before a big hurling game.
At the end of the sixties, there were three chipboard companies in Waterford, Scariff, Coleraine.
However, it was a toss of a coin over whether Oldcastle in Meath or Scariff would be the location for a new chipboard factory.
In 1957, Mr Shinners recalled during a public meeting in the Scariff Town Hall it emerged that 15,000 Irish pounds was needed to set up a factory in Scariff, which was provided by Tom McInerney.
The factory opened in 1959 when Lobenhoffer was the first general manager. Chipboard Limited was owned by a German company Aicher.
The German parent company was way ahead of its time so Chipboard Limited started producing a new product Aicher Plast.
In 1964, Mr Shinners travelled to the Dublin Horse Show to display this product.
Instead of painting chipboard, workers in Scariff put on a layer of film that was melted into the chipboard resulting in a superb product.
It didn’t take off in Ireland so Chipboard Limited decided to make fitted kitchen furniture setting up a new company – All- Plast, which could now supply new kitchen units that coincided with the provision of running water inside residential dwellings.
Having spent 12 months training Seamus Durack to be his successor, Mr Shinners went back to Chipboard Limited working as a sales representative in the West of Ireland and the Midlands, and never went back into the office again.
Hurling gave Mr Shinners a lot of confidence when he was selling products to people on the road.
All-Plast is a melamine product involved the melting of paper on to the chipboard that was extensively used in kitchen units.
The company also made Aichertone by cutting a mahogany tree, cutting it into four quarters, slicing one of the quarters that produces a veneer no thicker than blotting paper known as leaves that are rejoined.
An eight by four sheet of veneer would be glued down on to the chipboard that became in Mr Shinner’s view a “super” product that wasn’t provided by the other two Irish chipboard factories.
These three products were sold by Mr Shinners and other sales representatives to builder providers.
Driving a company car around the country, he often clocked up 50,000 miles annually, which included personal mileage travelling to GAA training and matches.
Chipboard Limited converted a 40-foot lorry into a mobile display unit, which was driven around Ireland for years showcasing chipboard, Aichertone – a veneered chipboard and Aicherplast that made kitchen units.
Mr Shinners recalled McInerney in Dublin closed down their joinery because Chipboard Limited were mass producing furniture for houses.
“This was a brand new product. No one in Ireland had seen it,” he said.
“Furniture factories started making living and dining room cabinets with varnished chipboard and then the kitchen units followed.
“There was nobody making a sink unit in the late sixties and early seventies. A builder might get a carpenter on a wet day to put together a sink unit, which would be a press with two doors.
“That is how All-Plast was formed. It was the second biggest company in Ireland that began to make fitted kitchen units. The main factory made the sheets. We used to have 24 different colours. You could have a roll of film in yellow or blue. That was rolled out and put on to the sheets of chipboard.
“That was big business at the time. Chipboard is made from a tree pulped up into chips using softwood grown in plantations since the early forties.
“Tom McInerney was in the right place at the right time to meet the shortfall. He was after building a big school in Gort and he had the finances to invest. He became a top director. If Tom McInerney wasn’t at that meeting, Oldcastle was going to get a new chipboard factory.
“Money was also possibly collected from business people.
The Board of Directors included Mr McInernry, Barney O’Driscoll who ran the slate factory in Portroe and a German Kuncher Meister.
After leaving in 1981, he set up his own company in Ballinasloe where he has lived since 1975.
Married to Chrissie from Athenry in 1971, the couple have three daughters and six grandchildren.
Manufacturing of chipboard ceased at the Scariff site in 2012. It is now run by EKO Integrated Services.
East Clare correspondent, Dan Danaher is a journalism graduate of Rathmines and UL. He has won numerous awards for special investigations on health, justice, environment, and reports on news, agriculture, disability, mental health and community.