The late Eddie Jordan worked as bank clerk in Mullingar
The former Formula 1 team boss Eddie Jordan, who died on Thursday last at his home in Cape Town, South Africa, is still remembered for his time working as a bank teller in Mullingar.
Mr Jordan, who is survived by his wife Marie and four children, disclosed in December that he had terminal cancer, and his death came just ten days before what would have been his 77th birthday.
The Dubliner told the story of how he ended up in Mullingar in his 2011 autobiography, An Independent Man. The 1970 bank strike led him to Jersey in seek of work, which he got with the Jersey Electricity Company, and at night, he worked in a pub called The Bristol Bar. He tried go-karting for the first time in Jersey: “The sense of excitement was immediate,” he wrote.
At the end of the bank strike, he returned to Ireland, and was transferred by the Hibernian Bank (which became the Bank of Ireland) to work in Mullingar. With him, he brought his passion for cars – and he met several like-minded people here, including Jim Bourke of Mullingar Autos, who shared his memories of Jordan this week; John Hamill, and solicitor Denis Shaw. With Denis Shaw, he set about establishing the Mullingar Karting Club.
“Our ‘track’ consisted of a few roads with straw bales marking out the course and protecting us from lampposts and other potential hazards,” he stated in his autobiography.
He said that it was worse than basic, “it was agricultural”. “If the safety people in racing today saw what we were up to three decades ago, they would have a fit.
“At the time, no one cared. It was huge fun because we were racing and the local population, for whom life in Mullingar was pretty still, loved the noise. And it cost them nothing.”
At first, he shared a kart with Denis, but they quickly realised they needed one each.
At every opportunity, they went karting, but at an event in Monasterboice, Jordan was involved in a head-on collision, and left with a serious compound fracture to his leg, which kept him off work for several weeks.
When he recovered, he discovered he had been transferred to Galway.
Jim Bourke recalled Jordan as being full of ideas: “He was always a great entrepreneur,” he said in an interview on Midlands 103. “When he worked at the Bank of Ireland as a teller, I remember well when he’d see me coming in, he’d be liable to close the counter and the queue in front of him and bring me over to one side. ‘Jim, Jim, I have another idea!’ He’d be building castles in the air continuously.”
Mr Bourke recalled Jordan starting a midland championship, and then deciding to run the world international go-kart championship at the army barracks in Mullingar.
Over time, Jordan moved up through Formula Ford, Formula Three, Formula Atlantic, and he raced one Formula Two event. In 1979, he founded Eddie Jordan Racing, and thus began the management career which made his name and his fortune.
A keen cyclist, sailor, drummer and art collector, Jordan wound up with business interests across a range of sectors. He was also a shareholder in Celtic Football Club, and received an OBE for his work as patron of a UK charity, Clic Sargent.