1964 – Potez Aerospace, Baldonnell, Co. Dublin
Designed by a French team, this office building still retains an aura of 1960s modernity. Behind the offices is a very large factory building, once described as Ireland’s largest industrial building, sited towards the edge of Baldonnel aerodrome. Complete with reflecting pool out front, it was quite the symbol of a modernising industrial Ireland.
The Potez project began in 1961 and with financial aid from the state, this massive modern plant was built, it was intended that the plant would manufacture a plane – the Potez 840. The 840 was a four-engined 18-passenger executive plane and the last aircraft to use the Potez name. Potez was a respected name in France since the First World War.
However, no orders were forthcoming. In August 1968 a liquidator was appointed to Potez Ireland Ltd. and the Baldonnel factory closed, never having employed more than 133 workers, a long way short of the 1,700 predicted by Henry Potez when he first put the proposal to the Irish government. At one time, their brochure also mentioned a facility in Galway. Questions were asked in the Dáil in 1966, to which the Minister for Industry and Commerce, George Colley replied “The total amount paid to date from Irish sources to Potez Aerospace Ltd., is £405,000. All of this sum has been paid to the company by An Foras Tionscal out of a grant of £463,000 approved for the project. A sum of £914,000 has been invested by Taiscí Stáit in Aviation Development Ltd., an associated Company.“
All in all, it cost the Irish government over a million pounds, a huge amount of money in the 1960s. At closure in 1968, the Managing Director described the last offer from the Irish government for financial assistance as “inadequate” and delayed, but not one aircraft had been built in the factory. Instead, the company had concentrated on the production of aircraft components. Was later used by Lufthansa Technik Airmotive until 2014 and is now a postal depot.
Published February 3, 2025