Bill Ford, Family Honor Company’s Century in Ireland

Members of the Ford family return to the family’s ancestral home in Ireland to mark the centenary of the auto company in the Emerald Isle.

Ford Executive Chairman William Clay Ford, Jr., great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford, unveiled a plaque and bench in the center of Ballinascarthy, a village 25 miles (40 lm) from Cork City.

Henry’s father, William, and grandfather, John, were born in Ballinascarty, located in the south of Ireland, and it was from there William Ford and his family emigrated to the U.S. in 1847. The family settled in Michigan, where Henry Ford was born in 1863.

“I am excited and honored to be coming home to Cork to celebrate 100 years of Ford in Ireland,” Bill Ford says in a statement.

“Ford has deep roots in Cork, not only through my family’s historical connection, but also through the impact that the Ford factory has had as an engine for prosperity for the area over many decades.”

Henry Ford was conscious of his family’s heritage and in 1917 chose an old racecourse site in Cork for the first purpose-built Ford factory outside of North America.

The company that Henry Ford established in 1917 was entitled Henry Ford & Son, and that continues to be the legal name of Ford in Ireland to this day – the only Ford entity in the world to include the full name of the company’s founder in its title.

The Fordson tractor initially was the main product of the Cork plant, which by 1929 had become the world’s largest tractor factory.

The factory also produced passenger cars including the iconic Model T. The last Model T produced by Ford anywhere in the world rolled off the Cork factory production line in December 1928.

Model A, Model BF, Model Y, Prefect, Anglia, Escort, Cortina and Sierra models also were manufactured in Cork until the plant’s closure in 1984. But Ford has the widest network of dealers of any automaker in Ireland, with 52 dealerships providing direct and indirect employment to 1,000 people across the country.