Local Faces: John Whelan

MEET John Whelan, a local man who has worked as a graphic designer for over 40 years who began making models of buildings such as Tallaght Fire station and Tallaght Garda station when he found himself with more time on his hands during the Covid-19 lockdowns.

John began working as a printer for a company based in Sandyford in the 1980’s, before a bad accident forced him out of the trade.

It was during his time spent at Rehab Ireland where he began learning and studying graphic design, and through them he attended Maynooth University to get his qualifications.

He has worked for various print houses over the years, and for the last almost 16 years has been self-employed, supplying graphics to various local printers and clients who require various forms for graphic design, including logos, adverts, magazines and reports.

The incredible model of Tallaght Fire Station was made as a project during the Covid-19 lockdown and has recently been donated to the station for its 40th anniversary.

John Conroy

“There wasn’t a huge amount of work going on during the lockdown, everything had slowed down, so as a bit of a lockdown project for myself I decided to build Tallaght Fire Station,” John told The Echo.

“I worked on diecast models that came onto the scene from Brian Collins Enterprises when he announced a launch of two models both of which were based in Tallaght Fire Station – the fire appliance number 171a is still used today as to the 181D ambulance as seen in the photos.

“My background in graphic design for over 40 years probably provides me with an advantage in recreating the brickwork and windows, doors etc on the building to match them as close as I can, adding electrics to the building both inside and outside adds a great depth to the model and brings them to life as in the photo of the ambulance sitting in the bay inside the Tallaght Station.

“This was the inspiration to build a model of Tallaght Fire Station and the fact that Tallaght would be celebrating 40 years’ of service in Tallaght, it was my pleasure to donate this model to the station for them to display it in their offices as part of the history of the service in Tallaght.”

When the picture of the Tallaght Fire Station model went up on social media, it gained a lot of attention, and John was approached by someone in Tallaght Garda station to make a model of the building, prompting him to set himself a larger challenge.

“The same design for Tallaght [garda station] was used for Rathfarnham and Kilbarrack, they just put a different name on it. There was a nickname on the drawing ‘Southfork’ in handwriting on the bottom of the page and that’s what it was known as locally because it resembled the building out of Dallas.

“After I built Tallaght Garda Station, I had all of this material left over, so I said I would go on and build one of the most iconic buildings, Central Fire Station (Tara Street), which was coming up to its 115th year and donate it to them” John explained.

“Central Fire Station first opened in September 1907, and I scratch built a couple of Shand Mason Horse Pulled Steam Fire pumps similar to those used in the station at that time, also in the photos is a Purcell Rescue Ladder as named after the Fire Chief John Purcell who was the first Chief Fire Officer of the newly formed Dublin Fire Brigade.

“I also obtained some 1960’s Dennis F8 Appliances. The Tara Street model will soon be on display as part of the history of Dublin Fire Brigade and again that model was donated to Dublin Fire Brigade, and it was a great pleasure to do that.”

According to John, the process of building the models takes several weeks and extensive research beforehand to ensure accuracy.

Speaking about the research he did for Tallaght Fire Station, John explained: “During lockdown I couldn’t go into the library or anything like that, but the National Archives have a section where you can go online and look at buildings, and one of them was Tallaght.

“There is a lot of time spent on each model,” said John. “From research into the building of Tallaght Fire Station to obtaining copies of the original drawings from the National Library Archive in order for me to scale the model as close as possible to the original building, Tallaght would have taken approximately two months to complete.

The model of Tallaght Fire Station was built using materials called grey boards, which is laminated cereal boxes to create the curves of the model.

John Whelan

“There is a combination of both heavy and light grey boards,” John explained. “For the base structure, I used 2-3mm grey boards, the kind that are used in book binding, and for the outer skin of the model I use light grey boards as used in cereal boxes.

“To give extra strength to these and if using the curved features, I will bend them to the required shape and then use strong glue to laminate them, leave them for a day or two to dry hard.

“I used to torment my wife something fierce about keeping the cereal boxes flat and not folding them so I could laminate them and cut out the windows. For the main structure of the building, you would use two layers of cereal boxes like your standard Cornflakes box and glue them together to hold the curve.”

John says that he has plans to make more models including Clondalkin Garda Station which he has already began researching and hopes to keep making models of iconic local buildings such as Heuston Station to complete a “long-held” ambition for his own personal railway.

“My advice to any model builders or potential model builder is to take the time to do the research into the building and then step by step recreate the building, never be afraid of making a mistake or two, it is from mistakes that we learn.”