About Me
What is the Cultra- Motoring with panache about?
By the early 1900s Belfast was booming. Between 1851and 1901 the population had grown from 87,000 to just over 349,000. Much of this was driven by the growth of industry including linen, shipbuilding and distilling. Many of the owners and managers of these businesses, living nearby and with Belfast Lough on their doorstep, were members of the fashionable yacht clubs. Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club (RNIYC) members included Sir Otto Jaffé, twice Lord Mayor of Belfast and Ireland’s largest linen exporter, Frank Workman (of the ship builders Workman & Clark) and several brothers of James Craig (later Viscount Craigavon and the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland).
In 1905 the RNIYC came up with a new and innovative way to start the yachting season - they decided to hold a motor meet and hill climb at their clubhouse in the small village of Cultra. At a time when few owned cars, club members alone owned enough to hold what grew to become the biggest motor meeting in Ulster and one of the biggest in Ireland.
The cars were displayed on the seafront road outside the clubhouse for all to admire. Many also took part in the hill climb but the rules included one important caveat - the owner, not their chauffeur, had to drive!
Cultra - Motoring with panache is not just about cars - it is about Edwardian era society in Ireland and the prestige of owning the latest technology - the motor car.
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: Robinson Books - Hill Climbs and car Road Races in Northern Ireland 1905 to 1947
My books are about motor sport in Northern Ireland in the first half of the 20th century.
It was a time of enormous wealth , especially around Belfast, and the emergence of the motor car as both a means of transport and for use in competition, for example reliability trials, hill climbs and road races.
In 1922 Northern Ireland became the only part of the United Kingdom where roads could be closed for motorsport. In 1925 the Ulster Automobile Club was formed to promote motorsport.
My books focus on events not previously published and include the Edwardian Cultra Hill Climbs, sand racing at Magilligan Strand and the road races at Donaghadee and Bangor.
The second edition of the Ulster TT badges will be available in May 2025 and I am currently working on a new book on Craigantlet Hill climb 1925 to 1947.