placenamesCorroy
Corr Ráithe
Corroy’s factory site links a state industrial programme of the 1930s with later manufacturing businesses in County Mayo.
The name
These Irish name elements are associated with this record in the Logainm glossary.
An element’s translation is a clue, rather than a complete explanation of the name. Its form and meaning depend on local history and the full Irish name.
Recorded forms
- Corr Ráithe · Irish · main form · validated name
- Corroy · English · main form
Place & story
From industrial alcohol to glucose
Corroy was one of five locations chosen for state-backed distilleries using potatoes as raw material. A 1979 Oireachtas committee report explains that surplus potatoes helped shape the original network, but changing supplies and production methods later reduced it. At Corroy, glucose manufacture replaced distilling. The report recorded fifty employees there and examined difficulties caused by rising maize-starch costs and pricing arrangements. Its findings show both the factory’s employment importance and the pressures on this branch of the state company Ceimicí Teoranta. [2]
Modern industrial architecture
The Dictionary of Irish Architects identifies Corroy’s alcohol factory as work by the Dutch architect Jan Diederik Postma for the Irish government in the 1930s. It places the building within the International Modern style and links it with the wider programme of alcohol factories. The site operator’s history also singles out the surviving chimney, built with Dutch bricks by a German craftsman working alongside local labour. Architecture, materials and skills all connected this rural industrial project with continental Europe. [3] [4]
New uses for the factory site
After the glucose factory closed in 1982, the Corroy site acquired new manufacturing uses. Ultrapure’s history records its purchase in 1984 by Vincent Dempsey and colleagues, who established Belco Sports to make PVC footballs, play balls and traffic cones for markets in Britain and Europe. Ultrapure began around 1988 with purified water for local businesses, later expanding into other products. The company acquired the main factory in 2019 and renovated it, extending the site’s industrial life. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Mayo
- Barony
- Tirawley
- Civil parish
- Ballynahaglish
- Coordinates
- 54.06932, -9.17631 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1414389 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Corroy. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Report No. 05 — Ceimicí Teoranta, 10 October 1979 · Oireachtas Joint Committee on Commercial State-Sponsored Bodies
- Postma, Jan Diederik: Corroy alcohol factory · Irish Architectural Archive, Dictionary of Irish Architects
- Our History: From Ceimici Teoranta to Ultrapure Laboratories · Ultrapure Laboratories
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.