photo second opinion

anybody that has interest in armoured vehicles use in ireland 1916-1923 will recognize these photos the daimler flat bed lorry owned by guinness brewery that was improvised into an armoured car in april 1916 these photo are all over the net and books...

it looks like photos 1,2,3 are a different vehicle to photo 4 id welcome a secound opinion..

After realsing the photos have been posted in reverse order, I agree.

What's interesting is a lot of the loop holes appear to be nothing of the sort - just painted holes. So ignoring the differences in the pattern of 'holes' the main difference appears to be the position of the horizontal ribs on the boiler.

I think the chassis are actually Milne-Daimlers.

I agree that they look like different vehicles but David Fletcher states that the brewery had three Daimler lorries which were converted so this is very likely.

Steve

most of the gun slots are painted to fool snippers, i know 3 lorries were built and when thing's cooled down they were giving back to guinness one story has it that they were built in guinness ( i dont think the guinness trains were that big to have a smoke box's like that), and one story has it they were built in gsr railway works inchicore, i think you have 2 or even 3 of them.

railwaylad

i dont think the guinness trains were that big to have a smoke box's like that

 

Perhaps the boilers were locomotive types used as fixed plant in the guiness brewery.

The lorries came from Guinness but were sent to Inchicore railway workshops where they used whatever was to hand to make them. The main shape is formed of four locomotive smokeboxes from main line railway locomotives which were 5'3" gauge. The reinforcement over the lorry cab is a locomotive cab roof. I haven't been able to work out the class of locomotives used, however!

Steve

this is from a 1996 railway book that i have it quotes an earlier 1974 magazine

more info

and more info

I agree with Steve (and the second article), it is clearly four smokeboxes joined together and not a boiler, one can even see the way the opening for the funnel has been crudely patched over on each. I too do not believe the story about Guiness boliers: as is well known most of the Guniness locos were 1'-10" gauge locos with small vertical boilers. I seem to recall that (despite the famous 5'-3" conversion trucks for the 1'-10" locos) that Guiness had a couple of conventioinal 5'-3" gauge saddle tanks for shunting, but certainly not enough to yield four smokeboxes.

guinness daimler dublin 1916

This is slightly off-subject, but some footage showing an interesting looking towed pillbox at the 'Four Courts' battle (similar footage in all of them):

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=4641

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=18691

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=18693

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=18705

Actually, looking at the films again, a diff withh tie rods can clearly be seen, as can a front wing. So it's clearly an armoured car. But the body looks to be too short to be the vehicle at the top of this page?

thanks runflat

there all irish civil war videos from 1922 with the odd 1920/21 bit added in for some reason. the armoured cars in the videos are armoured lancias. a very basic armoured box on wheels locally built on the british acquired right hand drive italian lancia chassis and unique to ireland and probably built by the same hands that built the 1916 guinness armoured cars in railway workshops. the lancia was also used to tow the 18pdr which fired the first official shot of the irish civil war at the four courts. the 18pounders in the photo/videos were maned by x ira men and not artillery men and had there sights removed before the british army handed them over which accounts for the holes in the river liffey wall. two rounds overshot and landed in the phoenex park near the then british army ghq. there is a armoured lancia in the videos/photo blocking the gate of the four courts put there by the national army to block in the ira 1920 pattern rolls royce armoured car called the (mutineer) which had left the four courts several times and gave concern to the national army..

Ah, yes, Lancias! I should have guessed that. I hadn't realised they were used as artillery tractors / towing vehicles.

very rare to see a photo of a lancia or any other vehicle of the time towing artillery. probably because there was very little artillery to be towed.

A couple of pictures from my collection (not for reproduction). The first is captioned: The driver wearing goggles was the man who's (sic) car I was towing, hence his good coat of dust, which was much worse than it appears. Clog[h]er Palace is the repair depot for the Tyrone cars.

They, of course, show a Lancia a/c and a Crossley.

NB The Crossley is registered NC1828. Various other Crossleys from the "NC" sequence can be seen in Armoured and heavy vehicles of the RUC 1922-2001 by David Dunne namely NC1785, NC1803, NC1822, NC1827 and NC1879.

Irish armoured cars converted for railway patrol use: http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=19719

According to Karl Martin's excellent Irish Army Vehicles they were converted by the Great Southern & Western Railway workshops for use by the Railway Protection, Repair and Maintenance Corps - established by the National Army from Jan to Sept 1923 to counter attacks on the railway system. Only two Lancias had turrets.

Re. the Guiness 'Daimlers', I believe these in fact to be Milnes-Daimlers which have no connection with the Coventry Daimler. These were built at Marienfelde, Berlin by the Daimler company ( who by now had changed their marketing name for cars to 'Mercedes' ) and sold here by G.F.Milnes who had obtained the sole selling concession for GB and the British Empire. The illustration in reply no.11 certainly shows the front features of a post 1907 model with pressed steel chassis frame etc. Somewhere I think I have a photo of one in its original form which I will endeavour to find.

Richard Peskett.

Re. the Guiness 'Daimlers', I believe these in fact to be Milnes-Daimlers which have no connection with the Coventry Daimler. These were built at Marienfelde, Berlin by the Daimler company ( who by now had changed their marketing name for cars to 'Mercedes' ) and sold here by G.F.Milnes who had obtained the sole selling concession for GB and the British Empire. The illustration in reply no.11 certainly shows the front features of a post 1907 model with pressed steel chassis frame etc. Somewhere I think I have a photo of one in its original form which I will endeavour to find.

Richard Peskett.

yes richard i think you probably correct.

two excellent books mentioned on the thread karl martin & david dunne.

more NC reg.. NC 1211 dublin 2,2,1921 and a earlier photo of IK 2705 (elsie)with its original mudguards 1,11,1920

http://www.gettyimages.ie/Search/Search.aspx?contractUrl=2&language=en-GB&assetType=image&p=80747906

Did these lorries originate from Guiness ?. I have looked through various contemporary literature and to date can only find that by 1911/12 Guiness had 6 Straker-Squire motor lorries, the horse still being favourite... but Messrs. Cantrell and Cochrane, mineral water makers, Dublin had by 1911 at least 2 Milnes-Daimlers of the type used as armoured lorries. The cab roof outline would seem to match the roof line illustrated in reply no. 8 etc. Sorry about the poor quality photo but the original is on poor quality paper.

Richard Peskett.

great photo richard i never realized C&C were such an old company.all info of the day points at daimler lorrys from guinness. BUT only 3 were armoured at the railway works and are well documented. there may have been more (possibly three) 2 of which were armoured at guinness and a 3rd in a local engineering shop. although writings of the day just refer to them as armoured motors lorry.

any chance you could ID the lorry in this 1922 photo . .

http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000236792

great photo richard i never realized C&C were such an old company.all info of the day points at daimler lorrys from guinness. BUT only 3 were armoured at the railway works and are well documented. there may have been more (possibly three) 2 of which were armoured at guinness and a 3rd in a local engineering shop. although writings of the day just refer to them as armoured motors lorry.

 

any chance you could ID the lorry in this 1922 photo . .

 

http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000236792

is it a karrier

I think the archive picture is a c.1909 Argyll.

Richard Peskett.