Swastika Laundry

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The Swastika Laundry was a laundry founded in 1912, located on Shelbourne Road, Ballsbridge, a district of Dublin, Ireland. They used electric vans, that were painted in red with a black swastika on a white background,^[1] to collect and deliver laundry to customers.

In 1939 the laundry changed its name to "The Swastika Laundry (1912)" to make a clear the distinction between its use of the name and the symbol and the recent adoption of the symbol by the National Socialist (Nazi) Party in Germany.

The company ceased to exist in the late 1960s when it was bought out by the Spring Grove Laundry company which occupied the same site in Ballsbridge.^[2]

Following the closure of the laundry in the late 1960s and at least until the early 1980s the laundry chimney was emblazoned with a large white swastika that could be seen from from many places in the surrounding area including the Merrion Road; a main road south from Dublin. Spring Grove sold this property for redevelopment in the early 21st century, undoubtedly due to the Dublin property boom in the 1990s and 2000s and the fact that Ballsbridge is part of the popular and exclusive area of Dublin 4. A office development called "The Oval" was constructed on the site but the only reminder of the Swastika Laundry is a brick chimney which is a protected structure. The chimney has been surrounded by the "oval" of the new development.

The use of the Swastika name for this company was as an ancient symbol of good luck in India; its name originates from the sanskrit svastika.^[3]

Picture of a Swastika Laundry van used in a film: van

In his "Irisches Tagebuch" the future Nobel Laureate, Heinrich Böll writes about a year spent living in the west of Ireland in the 1950s. While in Dublin before heading to Co. Mayo, he…

"was almost run over by a bright-red panel truck whose sole decoration was a big swastika. Had someone sold Völkischer Beobachter delivery trucks here, or did the Völkischer Beobachter still have a branch office here? This one looked exactly like those I remembered; but the driver crossed himself as he smilingly signalled to me to proceed, and on closer inspection I saw what had happened. It was simply the "Swastika Laundry," which had painted the year of its founding, 1912, clearly beneath the swastika; but the mere possibility that it might have been one of those others was enough to take my breath away."^[4]