Chris Keeley, former Urney Chocolates mechanical fitter who now works in distribution with The Echo
The Echo at 45: 300 jobs lost at Urney Chocolates
MAY 1980: In 1980, Urney Chocolates in Tallaght closed, which led to the loss of some 300 jobs.
It was a story that featured on the front page of the first edition of The Echo and one which Chris Keeley knows all too well.
“I know because I was one of them,” recalled Chris with a chuckle.
He was a former mechanical fitter at the business, which once operated as one of the largest chocolate factories in Europe and was a major employer in Tallaght.
“I was one of many Keeley’s that worked there, including my mam and dad, a brother and two sisters. The memories at the time are that people would walk from Maelruain’s to work. Most of the people who worked there were from Tallaght,” said Chris, who currently works in distribution for The Echo.
Urney Chocolates was established in 1919 by the Gallagher family in Tyrone before moving to Tallaght in 1924. It was located on a massive site which is home today to Belgard Retail Park, with tenants such as B&Q and Homestore + more.
“I started there in 1974/75 as an apprentice fitter in mechanical engineering. My role was as a mechanical fitter. In layman’s terms if a machine broke down, you fixed it. That could be anything from conveyor belts to chocolate pumps to coating machines,” said Chris.
Chris did a four-year apprenticeship at Urney with three-month spells in Bolton Street Tech where his fellow apprentices would be jealous of his station.
“I’d meet guys and they’d ask ‘where do you work’, and they couldn’t believe when I said I worked at a chocolate factory.”
It was the equivalent of a childhood dream for a lad who started working at Urney when he was 15 years old.
“It wasn’t just chocolate. They also had hard-boiled sweets, all the Easter eggs. The Catch bar was huge and still going today. Instead of Smarties ours were called Beanos. There was also a Turkish Delight, a lot of stuff mirrored originals. We had the Two and Two which was dark chocolate at the bottom, milk chocolate at the top and a filling.”
Following the closure of the manufacturing business in 1980 Chris moved to Leaf Bubble Gum in Kildare.
“One of the reasons I got the job was because they bought the Beano plant off Urney’s. They saw me as important because I knew the system but it failed to take off despite the money and time they invested in it.”
Another benefit of the job was a weekly visit to the ‘shop’ in Urney’s where staff could pick up broken bits of chocolate and sweets.
“I always remember my dad (Christy Snr). He worked there for years, up until it closed, starting out as a greaser and working his way up to storeman manager in the engineering department. As kids, he would keep brown paper bags twisted up at the top in the wardrobe and our task was to find a way to get a sweet out and twist the bags back up without him knowing.
“It was a great place to serve your apprenticeship. I know some places that see it as cheap labour but Urney’s put you under someone’s wing for three months at a time. The coverage and experience stood to me. In all my four years as an apprentice there I only worked a year-and-a-half as a fully fledged mechanical fitter.”
After a number of years at Leaf Bubble Gum in Kildare, Chris moved back to Tallaght
to work with J&J, a stone’s throw from where Urney’s made their signature treats for decades.
“I came out of there when I was 20, I’m 65 now but it’s still very clear. There was no real shock at the closure. I don’t remember it being particularly traumatising. I don’t recall people getting wind of it ahead of time either.
“But I do remember there were a load of parties, with redundancies and people leaving. People took it on the chin. The redundancies were reasonable as well.”
