‘Of Wood and Wool’ New book chronicles the sprawling furniture industries that dominated Navan

The beginnings of the furniture industry in Navan was recalled by author Ken Davis when he said that the Athlumney Sawmill became the Athlumney Sawmill and Furniture Factory and went through various ownerships starting with the McCann family from 1906-12, the Goodearl brothers from England 1912-18 and finally the Alesbury brothers 1918-33.

The Alesbury brothers were all over the furniture industry in Navan at that time. By the time the factory had burned down in 1933, the seeds of the industry had already fallen around the town, had taken root and spread among ex-Alesbury employees throughout Navan, people like John Hogg, William ‘The Bard' Walsh who had already started their own businesses. The destruction of the Alesbury factory unleashed 120 skilled men onto the labour market and their abilities turbocharged the factories of Hogg and Walsh in particular and led to their “phenomenal” growth through the 1930s.

“These companies, along with Navan Joinery and Furniture Works in the late 1940s went on to spawn further generations of industrialists. The apprentices of the 1950s became the factory owners of the 1960s and the cycle repeated itself until you had this vast sprawling industry throughout Navan that was employing 1,000 to 1,200 people when the population was around 6,500 people”.

In February 2022, Gary O’Meara had mentioned that he had a file of digitised photographs from the days of the Exhibition Centre and enquired about the possibility of producing a book to mark the Meath Enterprise 25th anniversary.

“The gears started to revolve in my head and I said ‘do you know that there is a whole back story as to how this building was built and the story has never been told?’ and so the idea of a more ambitious book began to grow in our minds,” Ken Davis stated. “I thought about it a bit more and I came to Gary and said ‘I’d like to have a crack at it’ but that not only would we cover the furniture industry but we would include Navan Carpets in the story which was also a big part of Navan’s industrial history in the 20th century”.

The Exhibition Centre and the Meath Enterprise Centre had made a big contribution to the life of the town but also the nation. To their credit, Meath Enterprise had given him the “green light” for the book and had given him carte blanche to go off and write the book, the only stipulation being that the industries be looked at through the lens of enterprise and innovation. And the final chapter dealing with how the Exhibition Centre was transformed into the Enterprise Centre was written by Gary O’Meara himself.

The centre has been transferred into a thriving hub for start-up industries.

It was entirely appropriate that they were having the launch of “Of Wood and Wool” in the enterprise building, a building that was part of the narrative of the story surrounding the furniture and carpet industries in Navan. There was a very strong link between the past and the future in it.