The Swastika and the Laundry: or…what on earth were they thinking of? April 22, 2007
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Culture, Ireland.trackback
For some reason the thought of the Swastika Laundry came into my mind the other day.
For those unaware of this particular slice of Irish material culture the Swastika Laundry was a venerable institution in Dublin, founded in 1912. It operated from Shelbourne Road in Dublin 4 and remained in business until the late 1960s. I remember vividly the cream and brown coloured labels they used to tag their deliveries and the electric vans that they were delivered in. Now, seeing as this would have been 1967 or 8 it must have been just prior to their eventual demise.
And quite a sight the labels and vans were too, emblazoned with that most remarkable of symbols, the…er…swastika. The photograph below is available on the Dublin City Council website, and depicts the livery of the company on a van used in the series “Caught in a Free State”. I certainly don’t remember the vans as being red, so perhaps this was a previous livery that the company used (or perhaps they overdid the look to make it more Nazi-like - but even so the Swastika remained the symbol of the company).
According to an Irish Times report from some years ago the Laundry changed it’s name in 1939 to Swastika Laundry (1912), perhaps in an effort to preempt a successful German invasion of launderers fired up on National Socialism, and ready to orient the Swastika in the opposite direction.
Because it is strange, but true, to consider that the Swastika laundry used the Swastika in it’s original configuration.
Even more strange is the thought that the brick chimney at Shelbourne Road was also decorated with a Swastika and the name of the company up until the late 1960s. Irish Eagle has a photograph which I hope I can get a scan of of just that location.
So what was it about? The logo was introduced at a time well before it’s association with National Socialism. It was a symbol of good luck, originating in India. It was configured facing left to right which is the correct Indian orientation.
Yet it’s hard not to believe, if only judging from the way in which the van above, which would date from the post-War period, is decorated with the Swastika set within a white roundel with two horizontal bars on either side and set against a red field in an almost exact emulation of the Nazi symbol, that the most unpleasant connotations of the symbolism were being - at best - parodied.
So here we have it. Ireland’s capital city, graced with laundry vans plying their trade hither and yon decorated in arguably the most reviled political symbol of human history.
In some respects it speaks of an innocence regarding the power of visual symbolism. But it is difficult to judge at this remove the true motivation behind it’s use. Was it a sense that the Swastika Laundry had it first and therefore it had some ‘ownership’ of the image? It certainly tends to indicate an insularity as to the significations of the Swastika, and perhaps within a culture that reified the written and spoken word over the visual this isn’t quite so surprising.
And it raises interesting and troubling questions regarding the nature of other imagery that has political connotations.
Good grief. I’d never heard of the Swastika Laundry. Comes from having a culchie background perhaps. It’s actually astonishing that they kept going after WW2 and the full detail of the Holocaust became widely known.
Two slightly connected points, while not denying the suggestion that the Swastika is arguably one of the most reviled political symbols in human history, I’ve occasionally wondered what our growing Chinese community thinks of Mao’s restaurant. Or some of our Russian friends think of a pub called after the Soviet newspaper, Pravda.
Finally, in a shamefully blatant attempt to link back to my own story, would the Swastika Laundry be a target for hate crime legislation these days?
There was a large issue made out of Mao’s restaraunt (which is damn good, by the by). The logo used to be Mao’s smiling face, with the colours messed around. Now it’s a cute Asian kid eating a chicken skewer. The only reference to Mao himself now is the name.
I wouldn’t imagine most Russians would be too bothered about Pravda. The impression I’ve got from most of them I’ve met is that they don’t look back on the Soviet era in nearly as much anger as we sometimes think they do.
An establishment named after Boris Yeltsin, on the other hand, would probably get its windows kicked in regularly.
BTW Frank, Joe Tiernan references the Swastika Laundry in his book about the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. That’s the first (and surprisingly, until now, last) place I ever heard of it.
Hate crime legislation? Possibly!
Mao? Never ate there, although had a few pints in Pravda. Still the Mao identity did strike me as a little bizarre.
Windows being kicked in would never happen to the Putin.
What was the reference Joe Tiernan made?
What was the reference Joe Tiernan made?
Can’t remember, but it was made only in passing.
Excellent piece. I can remember, as a very young man, spending a lot of time in the Hitler Bosco until they renamed it after some saint or other.
Cheers!
The Swastika Laundry was established in 1912 and continued to trade sucessfully until it was sold to Initial Services in 1987 now part of Rentokil. It had nothing whatsoever to do with Hitler or anything Nazi but was named when the founder’s wife bought a ornamental black cat with a Swastika symbol around it’s neck which is a symbol for good luck. When the war broke out Swastika Laundry was delivering and collecting domestic laundry to a large proportion of the houses in Dublin. The original company is still in existence but has been renamed and supplies sterile workwear to hospitals etc. The van shown above is not an actual Swastika Laundry van but one prepared especially for a TV film.
Mark, that is of course true, although all these points were made more generally in the piece above. WRT the van, you’ll note that I have referred to how I do not remember that livery myself and suggested that it was produced for the program.
Having said that, I don’t think that detracts from the central point that symbols have a certain power and resonance and that the swastika perhaps has more than most which is why there is a certain dislocation that the symbol was retained in the post-war period.
Whether this was a function of political or geographic isolation is the key question.
“Whether this was a function of political or geographic isolation is the key question.”
Partly political isolation, partly geographic isolation. Obviously it couldn’t have happened in the UK, but the Republic of Ireland was a very different place post-war.
Most Dublin people were aware that the Swastika Laundry had been in operation long before WW2, and wouldn’t have expected The Emergency to make much difference.
I can’t remember what colour the vans were, some low-key colour, quite different from the red in the picture.
I thought they were a pale cream or a brown, soubresauts, that at least is what my addled 3 year old memory in 1968 registered.
The version in the picture looks a bit - over the top, particular the wings on the swastika roundel…
I remember seeing the Swastika symbol until perhaps the 70s when I was a kid. I am pretty sure it was there all through the 70s. I might have been less than 10 but even I knew it was a wierd symbol to use as I associated it with Nazism and the 2nd world war. So, if I noticed all of those connotations, why didn´t the owners?
Hi , I worked in dublin as a shopfitter in the 60s. I remember the swastika laundry vans going about the city and i am sure they were in colour red.There was a shop beside mcberney on the quays that took in laundry for swastika company. I got my FCA uniform cleaned there every week. Just inside front door was was a information notice on the history of swastika laundry ,founded in 1912.
Thanks Tony for that. Do you or anyone else actually have a photo of them?
hi. no but try THE IRISH FILM BOARD temple bar.
That’s an interesting idea, cheers.
It began life in Dartry in 1888 as the Dublin Laundry Company beside the famous viaduct, “The 9 arches”. See link for more.
The laundry chimney was restored when the Dartry site was redeveloped for flats 9obscuring a nice view of the Dublin mountains).
thanks for that MarkW
I remember seeing the chimney with the swastika symbol and the words “Swastika Laundry” - this was as late as 1988 or 1989 as I was attending a conference in the RDS and had never been beyond the part of Dublin between Heuston Station and O’Connell Street/ Henry Street before the late 1980s.
Brilliant. Still, we haven’t had a photo yet.
I remember the vans around Kilbarrack in the late sixties. I also remember seeing the chimney in the 80s coming out of Lansdowne Road. I once went to Copenhagen to see the Boys in Green get whipped 3-0 by the Great Danes. We took in a tour of the Carlsberg brewery. Two pillars on the way in are adorned with carved swastikas. First thing the guide did was explain to everyone that the swastika is an ancient symbol, that these were on the pillars since the early 1900s, nothing to do with Nazism. I’m pretty sure they are still there today.
Yep, WBS, still no photo.
I was in Pravda years ago and asked some Russian girls next to my party what they thought of it all. They were pretty positive, actually.
(afterwards, the mate I was with said ‘Idris, those girls were 16′).
In St. Petersburg, not only do you see lots of teenagers wearing hammer and sickle t-shirts, but you can also buy primary school copybooks with soviet insignia on them . . .
Well, it’s better than swastika’s on copybooks.
The business was set up in the in 1912 and the owners named it the swastika because back then it was never associated with the nazi’s or genocide it was actually considered good luck. When the war broke out and of course the swastika was used by hitler the owners didn’t now what to do. Instead of changing the name they put “estabished 1912″ on it so people would know it wasnt associated with the german’s. Of course remembering that a lot of irish men were fighting the germans at the time.
after the war an old RAF pilot bought the laundry who of course got rid of the name but noticed after a few years that the name was so reconised that he had to name it the swastika once again.
I grew up in Dun Laoghaire born in 1948, left Ireland in March 1967. The Swastika Laundry vans were INDEED bright red and electrically operated, no petrol or diesel here. Well before their time. The Brittain family founded the company in about 1912.
Thes samrt vans were to be seen in Dun Laoghaire, Blackrock etc. The drivers also wore smart uniforms and caps as I remember. The vehicle in the Picture is I think an ex Dartry Laundry van, painted up for a movie or T.V series, ‘Caught in a Free State’ I have a half hour of CIE bus dreiver training movie by RTE in Feb 1966, but never shown on screen and it includes a Swastika Laundry van delivering in Westmoreland St. about two weeks befor poor Nelson became Ireland’s FIRST ASTRONAUT.
Cheers for that Eire and David O’Connor. By the late 60s the vans seem to have been a different colour… do you recall was the swastika symbol black on white?
Now I’m curious about the colour of those Swastika vans. David, can you confirm that the van in your 1966 film was bright red?
Not all the laundry vans were electric; that I’m sure of. Still, it’s amazing to think of how many electric vehicles were plying the streets and suburbs of Dublin fifty years ago. It’s as if battery technology hasn’t moved on very much since then.
I recall them well - we lived in Dalkey in the 60s and they collected our laundry in a red van emblazoned as above each week. I think we had to address the driver as “Obergruppenfuhrer” and shout “Heil Omo” when they pulled into the drive.
So it was red Donál. Interesting.