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{{Use Irish English|date=July 2015}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2015}}[[File:Swastika Laundry Ltd, Dublin, in 1981.jpg|thumb|Swastika Laundry, main entrance, in 1981.]]
The '''Swastika Laundry''' was an Irish business founded in 1912, located on [[Shelbourne Road]], [[Ballsbridge]], a district of [[Dublin]]. Due to its name and logo being associated with the [[Nazi Party]] in Germany, the name was changed in 1939 but their logo endured.

==History==
The [[laundry]] was founded by John W. Brittain (1872–1937) from [[Manorhamilton]], [[County Leitrim]], who was one of the "pioneers of the laundry business in Ireland", having founded the Metropolitan and White Heather Laundries in 1899. He was also the owner of a famous horse called Swastika Rose which was well known "to frequenters of the [[Royal Dublin Society|Royal Dublin's Society]]'s Shows".<ref name=":0">{{cite web|url=http://comeheretome.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/swastika-laundry-1912-1987/ |first=Sam |last=McGrath |title=Swastika Laundry (1912–1987) |publisher=Come here to me! |date=26 April 2010 |accessdate=10 January 2017}}</ref> The use of the [[Swastika]] name was as an ancient [[India]]n symbol of good luck: its name originates from the [[Sanskrit]] ''svastika''.<ref name="IT"/>

The company used electric vans, painted in red with a white swastika on a black roundel, to collect and deliver laundry to customers.<ref name=":0"/> The vans were quite ahead of their time.<ref name=":0"/><ref>{{Cite web |url= http://www.askaboutireland.ie/reading-room/environment-geography/transport/20th-century-transport-in/electricbattery-powered-v/index.xml |title=Electric/Battery Powered Vehicles |publisher=Ask About Ireland |accessdate=22 September 2010 }}</ref>

In 1939, the laundry changed its name to "The Swastika Laundry (1912)"<ref name="IT">{{cite news |title=Swastika chimney |newspaper=[[The Irish Times]] |location=Dublin |date=3 March 2007 |url=http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/commercialproperty/2007/0328/1175003340664.html |accessdate= 12 July 2008 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120208080939/http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/commercialproperty/2007/0328/1175003340664.html |archivedate=8 February 2012}}</ref> to make clear the distinction between its use of the name and symbol and the more recent adoption of the symbol by the [[Nazi Party]] in Germany.

It continued to exist as a separate company until the late 1960s, when it was bought out by the [[Spring Grove Laundry]] company, which continued to operate from the same site in Ballsbridge.<ref>{{cite web |title=Laundry operations director is used to clean living |work= |publisher=Spring Grove Laundry |date=11 June 2004 |url=http://www.springgrove.ie/news/archive/archive03.html |accessdate=5 October 2007 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110728110134/http://www.springgrove.ie/news/archive/archive03.html |archivedate=28 July 2011 }}</ref> Nevertheless, the logo and name continued in use until the premises closed in 1987.<ref name=":0"/>

==Later history of site==
Even following the closure of the laundry, its brick chimney, emblazoned with a large white [[swastika]], remained visible for some years from many places in the surrounding area, including the [[Merrion Road]], a main road south from Dublin.

Spring Grove sold the property for redevelopment in the early 21st century during the Dublin property boom of the 1990s and 2000s, as [[Ballsbridge]] was by then a popular and exclusive area of [[Dublin 4]]. An office development called "The Oval" was constructed on the site. The chimney, which is a protected structure, survives, but the painted swastika does not. The chimney is surrounded by the "oval" of the new development.<ref name=":0"/>

==Cultural references==
In his [[Irish journal|''Irisches Tagebuch'' (''Irish Journal'')]] (1957), the future [[Nobel Laureate]], [[Heinrich Böll]], writes about a year spent living in the west of Ireland in the 1950s. While in Dublin, before heading to [[County Mayo]], he:
{{blockquote|... was almost run over by a bright-red panel truck whose sole decoration was a big swastika. Had someone sold ''[[Völkischer Beobachter]]'' delivery trucks here, or did the ''Völkischer Beobachter'' still have a branch office here? This one looked exactly like [[Flag of Nazi Germany|those I remembered]]; but the driver crossed himself as he smilingly signalled to me to proceed, and on closer inspection I saw what had happened. It was simply the "Swastika Laundry," which had painted the year of its founding, 1912, clearly beneath the swastika; but the mere possibility that it might have been one of those others was enough to take my breath away.<ref>{{cite book |first=Heinrich |last=Böll |author-link=Heinrich Böll |title=Irish Journal: a traveller's portrait of Ireland |translator-first=Leila |translator-last=Vennewitz |publisher=Abacus |place=London |year=1984 |isbn=0349103526 |pages=21–2 }}</ref>}}

==See also==
* [[Western use of the swastika in the early 20th century]]
* [[Hitlers' Cross]], the former name of a restaurant in [[India]] with a Nazi motif.
* [[ASEA]], a Swedish Company that had a swastika in its logotype until 1933.
* [[Carlsberg Group]], a Danish brewery company that had a swastika logo until the 1930s.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*{{cite web|url=http://comeheretome.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/swastika-laundry-1912-1987/ |first=Sam |last=McGrath |title=Swastika Laundry (1912–1987) |publisher=Come here to me! |date=26 April 2010 |accessdate=10 January 2017}} Brief history of the laundry with a selection of pictures.

[[Category:Business services companies established in 1912]]
[[Category:Companies based in Dublin (city)]]
[[Category:Laundry businesses]]
[[Category:Swastika|Laundry]]
[[Category:1912 establishments in Ireland]]
[[Category:1960s disestablishments in Ireland]]

Swastika Laundry - Revision history

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