‘Without Asahi, I would have left the area altogether’
The sprawling Asahi industrial complex in 1997 when it closed its doors after over 20 years in Killala. Picture: Western People Archives
Twenty-five years ago, the closure of Asahi in Killala brought an end to the north Mayo town’s place in the West’s industrial revolution that sprang up throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The nearby town of Ballina had Hollister, Castlebar had Baxter/ Travenol and Westport had Allergan but it was little old Killala, kissing the north Atlantic coast that perhaps boasted the biggest industrial gamechanger of all in terms of the impact the Japanese synthetic fibre specialists Asahi made to the local town and surrounding region.
In the years since the closure of Asahi, the sprawling site at the entrance to the town has been the subject of many false dawns, but there has been the odd success story emerging from the Tawnaghmore location too.
Killala in the 20th century came to be defined by the arrival and departure of Asahi. This is the story of Killala in the Asahi era and beyond.
As Killala struggled amid a Europe-wide economic recession in the early 1970s, Japan was hitting the peak of its epic post-World War II economic recovery and national confidence was at an all-time high. In terms of world economies, it was the third strongest, trailing only after the ‘Superpowers’ of the United States and the Soviet Union. In essence, Japan had the second strongest economy in the non-Communist world, and it had built it off the back of the rapid growth of industries related to fashion, information technology, consumer electronics and more.
One such industrial giant was Asahi, a producer of synthetic fibre. The parent company was founded in May 1931 in the city of Nobeoka and it employed over 118,000 people in 1972. Among the diverse range of products manufactured by Asahi were Cashmilon acrylic fibre, synthetic rubber, plastics, fine chemicals and more.
By the early 1970s, management at Asahi had turned their thoughts towards obtaining a site in Ireland that could be used as a European manufacturing base to spin acrylic fibre for fashion wear and curtains. They set their sights on the North Mayo outpost of Killala, following liaison with a group of locals and the IDA. Like Nobeoka, Killala had a rich tradition of fishing, but the comparisons don’t extend much further.
To call the Asahi arrival a coup for Killala was an understatement. Killala's place in 1970s' rural Ireland was a familiar one: another village-cum-town that had been devastated by emigration for years on end. A Killala without Asahi would have been just like the Killala of decades previous. The next step out of school for youngsters completing their school years would be straight onto the train to Dublin, the boat to England or the plane to America.
Martin Lynn, who worked on the construction of Asahi and later served as utilities manager in the plant's boiler house up until the closure, says Asahi was what kept him and several of his classmates in the area.
“I got the results of my Leaving Cert, went to study mechanical engineering, and then came straight back into working in Asahi. Without Asahi, I would have left the area altogether. It kept my entire class from Lacken Cross Secondary School in the area,” notes Martin.
Asahi was the kind of development the IDA had been dreaming about for a rural location. It came with the promise of a spinning factory costing somewhere between £20m and £40m, as well as 640 jobs, rising to 1,100 after a few years. The site that Asahi purchased to host its engineering facilities was an immense 422 acres – or about 250 full-size pitches – and was located at Tawnaghmore on the eastern side of the town. It was the biggest development ever to come into the west of Ireland at the time.
The benefits of the development were far-reaching and went beyond the 1,100 jobs that Asahi promised to create. There was the matter of building the facility, an effort that was going to take between 250 and 300 workers. The Asahi development, which began in October 1974, brought dozens of ‘exiles’ back to the west of Ireland. Even the contracts manager with Dublin-based GT Crampton, who was awarded the contract to build the shell of the Asahi complex, was a native of the area. John Williams had spent 15 years in Castlebar and ten in Ballina where his father was a solicitor. The Ballina area was enjoying somewhat of a building boom around this time as the sod was also being turned on Hollister.
Work also commenced on the modernisation of Ballina railway station, costing in the region of £300,000, This would allow the station to better handle the new passengers riding the rails on the Asahi train: the toxic inflammable acrylonitrile and methyl acrylate, fuel oil and the finished product, acrylic fibre. Perhaps Asahi, and Killala as a whole, could have benefited from the relinking of train tracks between Killala and Ballina, but this did not come to pass.
Housing in the area became a valuable commodity as people flocked to become part of the Asahi team in Killala and advertisments in the always gave an exact distance from these “fine bungalows” and “refurbished dwellings” to Asahi. As well as this, Asahi purchased a number of houses in the area. The most famous property in the company's portfolio was Killala House, once home to the Knox-Gore family. Asahi purchased it to be used as accommodation for its employees.
Roots were soon being planted and the first chapters of life stories were written... life stories that are still rooted in North Mayo.
Asahi first brought Eugene Farrell and his family to Killala in 1977. Eugene, a native of Crossmaglen in Co Armagh, had been working in the spinning mills in Lancashire in England and was looking for a move back across the Irish Sea.
“My wife and I got an Irish telephone directory and found all of the spinning mills. The last one we got in touch with was the Kiltimagh Spinning Company. I got a lovely letter back from the managing director who said I was the perfect candidate, only they were about to wind down but he told me there would be jobs coming in a new plant in a place called Killala.”
Eugene got in touch with Asahi and after two interviews, got the job. He moved over with his family to Killala, a place he had only heard of because of General Humbert, and started in Asahi on October 7, 1977. For the Farrell family, it was a quick transition to life in North Mayo.
“All my kids went to the local school and the people of Killala were fantastic. My family are all still living and working in the local area and that is amazing.”
Asahi brought with them a pressing need for water... 10 million gallons per day to be specific. The new facility was well accommodated in this regard by Mayo County Council, which rushed through a water supply scheme costing around £1.8 million to give the Japanese firm what it needed, including water treatment facilities at Lisglennon.
This brought with it concerns from fisheries stakeholders about the potential effect on local fisherman and the pristine waters of Killala Bay, Lough Conn, and other surrounding watercourses. These concerns rumbled on over the next two years while work continued to be carried out on the development of the plant and there was genuine fear that the delay in the issuing of a foreshore licence, which would allow Asahi to discharge its effluent waste, might scupper the entire project. This did not come to pass, however, and the foreshore licence was granted in late 1975.
The facility came on stream in April 1977 and there was, at last, a bright future for Killala illuminated by the light of the Rising Sun. The boost to the local area was immediately evident as the population jumped from 368 in the census of 1971 to 619 a decade later, a phenomenal 68% increase at a time when most towns in the West of Ireland were experiencing single-digit growth at best.
The local population also experienced some diversification as employees flocked in from the likes of Japan and America to work in Asahi.
Patricia Collins (nee McNamara) was uprooted from her home in upstate New York and across the Atlantic Ocean to Killala as a teenager. Her father, a Kerry native, worked in Asahi up until it closed. Patricia’s mother was originally from Killala so the move was not a complete step into the unknown for the McNamara family.
“Moving from New York, where they had two cars in every driveway and a tv in every room, to the west of Ireland was horrific from a teenager’s point of view. But from a family viewpoint, it was lovely to have family in your life nearby,” said Patricia. “Back then, the travel to Ireland took about two days so it wasn’t as though we were able to see them frequently.”
There was great camaraderie between the staff at Asahi, regardless of where they came from.
“The Japanese were lovely people,” said Eugene Farrell. “We had heard stories about them singing company songs in the morning and posing out in front of the company flag. There was none of that, they were brilliant workers. The thing they always taught us was to learn by your mistakes, analyse them and talk through them. There was no such thing as giving a young lad a bollocking for some mistake he had made.
“They often asked me, because I had come from England, what I thought about timekeeping in Ireland. One of them once told me that Irish time is so different to Japanese time and that Mayo time was completely different to Irish time!”
Eugene, a proud Crossmaglen man, added that he “had a field day” in 1997 when his beloved Crossmaglen Rangers pipped Knockmore to the All-Ireland senior football club championship.
Local sports teams experienced boons when skilled players moved to the area to work in Asahi. Within the factory walls, young workers were getting on well while working hard.
“Asahi was a great education for young people, it gave me an education for life. It was like a family, everyone knew everyone else and it was a very friendly place to work,” recalls Martin Lynn. “It was a great place to work. People always aspired to go somewhere or be a manager somewhere and we were all happy to have the jobs."
Employees formed sports teams and formed clubs under the Asahi banner. Killala FC, the local soccer team, even played their matches for many years at Asahi Park.
“When my dad passed away a few years ago, there were so many Asahi colleagues at his funeral,” notes Patricia Collins. “It showed me how loyal they all were to each other. The Japanese really instilled that in everybody working at Asahi and everyone really bought into the idea of being one big family. It was nice.”
Asahi provided people with a good work-life balance and it brought a lot of liveliness into the town of Killala.
“There were around nine pubs in Killala in the 1970s and '80s but there was more to it besides having a few drinks,” says Eugene Farrell. “There was such a spread of people in Killala at the time. You could have a conversation with a colleague from Asahi or you could talk to a farmer and they’d tell you all of the things they had gone through in the 1930s and 1940s and what their parents went through before that. There were the local fishermen as well and they always had good stories to tell.”
However, things were not so bright for Asahi on the business front. The years that followed the opening of the facility should have been prosperous but instead were perilous and ultimately foreshadowed Asahi’s demise. It was reported in the in October 1986 that Asahi had turned a profit for the first time since the giant complex had opened eight years earlier. In those eight years, losses were estimated to have accumulated to around £50 million. So, what went wrong?
The situation with the synthetics market in Europe took a downward turn for companies like Asahi in the late 1970s and 1980s, and the synthetic industry entered its own recession as raw material costs skyrocketed. A three-year plan was implemented to help Asahi recover, and with hard work and commitment from staff, the plan paid off and the storm was weathered for the time being.
But the dark clouds soon rolled around again. Production levels dropped to 50% in June 1987 as once more the global market played havoc with Asahi’s operation.
The next few years passed and Asahi continued to be a cornerstone in the north Mayo community, but all that changed in 1997 when Asahi made the decision to close its facility in Killala. A few hiccups had sent the operation into a tailspin once more and consistent losses marked the end of the Japanese parent company's involvement in Ireland. External factors such as the competitiveness of the synthetics market, which worsened when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, were a massive factor in these losses.
Negotiations commenced and a plan was generated that would see the ownership relinquish their involvement by way of a management buy-out.
“The writing was on the wall,” admits Martin Lynn. “We all knew it was coming.”
Asahi’s management had made it clear to employees: there were no more alterations that could be made and there was no second chance at negotiations. Accept or close the operation entirely. It was an ultimatum that put some 320 livelihoods on the line.
A total of 126 operatives voted against compared to 93 in favour, which meant the rescue proposal was rejected. There were too many concerns floating around the proposed buy-out and it failed as a result. One claim was that the majority of the operatives had a lack of faith in the new management. How could the local management succeed where the Japanese had failed?
The hope that the facility and its jobs could be saved soon receded. The process of winding down production began until eventually the factory was closed for good.
“I’ll never forget the day,” said Eugene Farrell, who was working in Quality Control at this time. “I remember the clock being stopped at 1.50pm. The amount of tears I saw that day. For weeks after, the shock of not getting up and going to work in Asahi was unreal."
More than 320 people lost their jobs when Asahi closed, and its departure from Asahi reverberated across the region. Four civil maintenance personnel at Asahi and seven canteen workers also lost their jobs, and now that the Asahi freight train was going to sound its lonesome whistle for the final time, job losses for six workers were mooted at the Ballina Railway Station and also farther down the line at Athlone and Dublin.
Meanwhile, Asahi made a contribution of £200,000 towards an Enterprise Fund for North Mayo to encourage job creation and its assets were sold in 1998 to an American consortium.
The region was handed a boost a few months after the closure of Asahi when Coca-Cola and Lionbridge announced new facilities in nearby Balllina. A task force, assembled by then Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Harney following the closure of Asahi, took huge credit for these new arrivals. Coca-Cola could provide jobs and additional freight on the train line, and rail services were back to Asahi levels by 2001.
A lot of younger workers found their way back into the workforce, but older workers such as Eugene Farrell and Patricia’s father found themselves on the wrong side of 50 in their attempts to seek long-term employment.
The Asahi site has been, for the most part, an empty reminder of what once was in Killala and of the town's place on the industrial map in the west of Ireland. There is currently not a great deal of activity around the once-bustling facility.
At other times, the site has served many different purposes. In March 2000, the Mayo Stages Rally opened the National Rally Championship with its centralised service area based in the Asahi site. Killala Business Park, as it soon came to be known, became home to Schutz Ireland, a packaging company that worked in conjunction with Ballina Beverages. Schutz still runs its operations out of Killala Business Park.
The ESB parked temporary generators at the site in 2001 to help provide power to the national grid. CPC, a Portuguese company, arrived in June of that year. They had been subcontracted by the ESB to carry out upgrades to old electrification systems in the area but their stay was a short one.
In these early years following the closure, criticism went back time and time again to the task force which had ultimately failed to replace like for like when Asahi closed.
In 2004, controversy erupted when plans were unveiled for an asbestos recycling plant at the Asahi site. Some 2,000 people marched from the Killala round tower to the old Asahi facility to voice their opposition. This protest continued right through the end of the year, prompting sympathy from every corner for the Killala community’s fight to stop a toxic waste dump from being parked in their backyard. People power won out in the end and the promoters pulled the plug on the asbestos incinerator.
A similar controversy erupted the following year when McGrath's Industrial Waste signalled its intention to open a waste sorting facility for recycling on the Asahi site. The firm eventually got its wish when An Bord Pleanála backed its proposal in 2009.
The next big plan for the Killala Business Park was a 100-megawatt power station to be fuelled by a mixture of peat, wood and coal under the management of the US-backed Mayo Power Ltd. At this stage, in 2006, there were the ESB generators, Schutz, John Hogan’s Iron Excellence Forge and the offices of the Council for the West on site. Mayo County Council had ownership of a large portion of the vast property, including Glebe House, the home of Dr Kathleen Lynn, with Moy Valley IRD also owning parts of the site.
The Mayo Power plant was given the green light in 2007 but as the calendar turned to 2008, the proposed plans drew the ire of locals with four appeals sent into An Bord Pleanála. Another proposal, which would have seen the country’s first community-run wind farm launched at the Asahi site, was rejected by the planning appeals board around this time.
In September 2008, An Bord Pleanála requested further information from Mayo Power, asking it if its facility could be operated using biomass and coal as fuel sources, due to concerns over the use of peat.
The plans re-emerged in 2010 when a new proposal was submitted to Mayo County Council, complete with the new name of Mayo Renewable Power. Peat was taken out of the mix with the promise of 100% biomass fuelling the now 50-megawatt plant. It proved a much more popular proposal with locals than the original plan, and coming in the midst of the recession, it was a welcome boost to employment prospects in the area. In May 2011, Mayo County Council granted the scheme permission to go ahead with 220 jobs promised as a result.
However, there was another twist in the road for Mayo Power as An Taisce submitted an objection at the eleventh hour. An Taisce would soon withdraw its appeal following an agreement with Mayo Power that it would develop protocols to ensure the sustainability of local biomass sources. Plans for demolition and other site works now entered the pipeline.
Of the back of this, a motion was passed by Ballina area councillors calling for the development of a master plan for the Asahi site and the wider area was soon being mooted as the world’s first green enterprise park, with the Emerald Express Atlantic fibre optic cable expected to make land in neighbouring Ross and connect to a landing station at the Asahi site.
It wasn't until June 2015 that all the right measures were in place to allow Mayo Power to begin the now long-awaited works. The then Taoiseach Enda Kenny was on hand to turn the sod 40 years after his late father Henry Kenny TD was photographed outside the shell of the Asahi plant during a visit by its Japanese management.
Sadly, the Mayo Power project was not to be. Construction was suspended a year later due to funding difficulties and the local community was left stunned, especially as American backers Weichert Enterprises had spent €90m on the project. Mayo Power entered examinership with reported debts of €125m and a liquidator was soon appointed by the High Court.
Another investor moved in to purchase the assets of Mayo Power in 2019 but there have been no significant developments at the proposed plant since 2016. The development was granted extended planning permission up to June 2023 and with its half-constructed shell still dotting the Morth Mayo horizon, the lengthy saga of the ill-fated Killala Power Plant continues to this day.
There might be hope yet for a successful, large-scale employer at Killala Business Park, a true successor to the glory days of Asahi.
A data centre has been considered as a possible development and the Asahi site was reportedly considered by Apple as a potential location a decade ago.
Last January, Mayo County Council approved the disposal of lands at the Asahi site for the development of Mayo's first Green Data Hub.
US-based company AVAIO Digital Partners is proposing to develop a circa 20MW data centre facility which has the potential to attract global companies and hundreds of jobs to the area. There is also talk of hydrogen power coming into the area at a time when the discussion around it as a fuel source is heating up. Data centres get a rap for their energy usage and will be keen to shift to greener, cleaner alternatives, particularly in the wake of Eirgrid’s decision to prevent any more data centres popping up in the greater Dublin area.
When a young Jarlath Munnelly was first making waves in local politics, he issued a statement to the in 2003 calling for the old Asahi plant to be turned into "a 21st Century Technology Park". Two decades on, the Fine Gael councillor is beating the same drum.
“There has never been greater interest in this site during my time in local politics than there is now. The time is now for the Asahi site,” says Cllr Munnelly. “With the services it has available on site, and the access to power it has and could potentially have, the old Asahi site has the potential and the capability to provide employment for the entire north Mayo region.”
But what of the town adjacent to this long-vacant site?
The population of Killala rose to 713 in 1991 but by 2001, after Asahi had closed, it dropped to 569 and has yet to be restored to its peak, although it t has also not dropped to pre-Asahi levels of around 330. Killala never experienced the rural revitalisation that a giant company like Asahi or Coca-Cola would bring to the area but the town has survived and thrived in recent times.
The proof of this is in its still well-attended schools, with 87 children enrolled in St Joseph’s National School last year and 187 in Lacken Cross, the local secondary school. As well as this, the local soccer club and GAA club still enjoy strong levels of participation.
In terms of local employment, the likes of Schutz, Carr's Seafood and Precision Engineering continue to employ people from the local area while Killala has enjoyed a surge in tourism in recent years with unspoiled beaches and wildlife in its vicinity. Along with this surge in tourism comes a boost to the hospitality sector in the area and there are now cafes, bars, bike hires and accommodation providers in operation in Killala.
It is, of course, only a stone’s throw from further employment opportunities in Ballina and from popular locations such as Downpatrick Head and the Céide Fields that attract thousands of visitors every year.
In terms of its own industrial potential, Killala has been on the cusp of a new revolution since the closure of Asahi. The fiercely determined local population has made it clear that this revolution needs to be on their terms, as the unsuccessful application for the asbestos generator proved. Perhaps the revolution they are seeking will be a green one, perhaps not. There are likely many in the local populace who witnessed the fates of Asahi and the Mayo Power Plant and will view the progress of the Green Data Hub with cautious interest.
It has been suggested in the past that the Asahi site be turned into a Strategic Development Zone for North Mayo to give it more planning certainty but that potential designation will surely be overtaken by the current energy crisis.
The Asahi site, despite its shaky history, is still a gold mine with access to crucial services. Asahi’s former Japanese occupants have a saying in their native tongue that offers hope:
Not many rural areas boast the sort of acreage that Killala Business Park has for future development. It remains shovel-ready for a multitude of projects and if Killala is to make strides in the future, that sprawling 50-year-old industrial site at Tawnaghmore will be central. It may be a part of Killala's past right now, but it can still play a vital role in the town's future.
