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SON OF OUTSIDER

 

A journey from Drimnagh to

Ailesbury Road, through Family,

Guinness (Dublin),

Films, Chronic Pain

and Industrial Relations.

 

Mike Lawlor

 

Price € 20.00  

 

 

 

 

About the Book:

 

 

“This incredible journey, written in delicious detail by Mike Lawlor, takes us through many breath-taking scenarios in a fascinating and entertaining work, where, no matter what page you open, there is “something for everyone in the audience.”

 

I have known Mike for over sixty years, beginning with our time in the Brewers’ Laboratory in Guinness and, later, watched him move over into the world of Industrial Democracy with such ease that it looked as if he was born to the role. He also immersed himself in the world of photography and film making, gaining awards in both fields. He photographed and filmed the Shannon River over a fifteen year period.

 

He was a founder member of the Guinness Brewery Council and later Community Secretary at Guinness (Dublin), where he was responsible to the 23 Union Groups for the implementation of a Participation Programme during a period of extraordinary change and investment of £300million. He left Guinness at fifty and joined the Irish Productivity Centre, where he specialized in the area employee/management relations. On leaving the IPC he specialized in the area of International Bench-marking with large companies. He was a Ministerial appointment to the committee tasked with producing a report on Worker Participation in Ireland. He led the North/South EU/IPC funded “Japanisation” project which studied Japanese management practices in Europe, The United States and Canada.

 

In retirement, many of us yearn to research our family history, to record for posterity our life growing up, our hobbies and our work experiences.  Sadly, very few people follow this through, but Mike was different.  He has painstakingly recorded all his life in this work, written in user-friendly terms and easily readable.

 

For the benefit of his family, Mike has outlined his family history in detail, warts and all, including a two-decade encounter with Angela’s Chronic Pain.  For this, they owe him a debt of  gratitude.  Then, he follows on with an invaluable narrative on his experiences growing up in Drimnagh. Social historians and, indeed, Dubliners in general will love this section.  It certainly brought back many happy memories for me.”

                                                                                                                  

Tony Corcoran

 

 

About the Author:

 

 

“I intended to write this book on leaving Guinness (Dublin) thirty years ago. However, when I joined the Irish Productivity Centre I realised there was a big wide world outside of Guinness.

I finally got started typing about 10 years ago and have been at it on and off since.

I got a wakeup call at the races from one of my Guinness colleagues a couple of years back when he asked me when the book would be out. I replied by saying six months, to which he replied “Well for God's sake hurry up or we all will be dead!

Writing this has not been easy, given the many twists and turns of family life, especially Angela’s pain ordeal. It affected all of our family, especially the children.

 

It has been a wonderful life nonetheless: I have been fortunate in many respects especially meeting Angela without whom I could not have survived. She has been the rock of the family through her illness, the Guinness days, the film and Shannon days and my illness set back over the last five years.

The children, Gerard, Niall, JulieAnne, Virginia and their husbands and wives, Linda, Heather, Stephen and Bernard have all been supportive and are getting on well with their lives.

The book encompasses a period of eight decades, from Hitler marching into Austria in 1938 to a world of breath taking change and space exploration.

I hope it will be a bedrock of social history for readers and my twelve grandchildren; Myles, Ben, Ryan, Nora, Faye, Molly, Evan, Luke, Shea, Lauren, Ivan and Eliot.

To the many people mentioned in the book I want to thank them for the memories and for the few I criticise, I say that’s how I felt at the time, no offence intended. Although as an “outsider” within Guinness, I can say I surely never met a bad person there. To a fault, they were decent honourable people who were as proud as I was to work for such a decent and generous family, the Guinness’s.

Lastly, I would like to sincerely thank my two good friends, Tony Corcoran and Billy Porter who have been great supporters of mine both inside and outside of Guinness down the years. They have been of great help and support in preparing this book.”

Mike Lawlor

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