'Having lost everything there were still a lot of mouths to feed '

'Having lost everything there were still a lot of mouths to feed '

Billy Gallagher remembers struggling to start his own business after the closing of the family factory.

Billy Gallagher

Trinity College Dublin

1970

This item is protected by original copyright

This content may be downloaded and used (with attribution) for research, teaching or private study. It may not be used for commercial purposes without permission.

Billy Gallagher

Work and employment

Life Story

Glasgow, Scotland

1970's

I had been disappointed in 1967 when the Foyle factory closed and the family humbled. For reasons not connected to logic I bought ( £176K) a factory in Galway in 1979 and succeeded in losing everything I ever made almost instantly (employing 120 people). We struggled on until 1987 by which time I was married with 5 children and a pregnant wife and we went into liquidation. Having lost everything there were still a lot of mouths to feed and Alan Slythe, our Scottish agent, told me waistcoats were the coming thing. I had managed to 'merge' our relics with Clubman's relics in Donegal and thereby secure a job (on commission only) and the agents in UK and Ireland. Effectively we all just carried on as we were except we were depending on a new owner. The idea of waistcoats opened a whole new possibility.Alan Slythe sold 329 waistcoats to Goldbergs of Glasgow for £19 Sterling each. Michael Jacobs agreed to make them for us on CMT and I paid him for the making of 329 waistcoats with my car. This sale generated £6,500 and gave the oxygen to get back into business. We generated £100,000 in sales and £25,000 in profit from waistcoats in twelve months.

Irish Research Council for Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences (IRCHSS)

Dr Kathleen McTiernan (Trinity College Dublin)

Dr Deirdre O'Donnell (Trinity College Dublin)