A shamrock of motoring history: RIAC turns 125

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It is St Patrick’s Day, so the perfect opportunity to put Ireland in the motoring limelight! As it happens, there is another reason to raise a glass: the Royal Irish Automobile Club celebrated its 125th anniversary earlier this year and has some treats in store for us.

It all started on 22 January 1901 when a group of motoring pioneers gathered at the Hotel Metropole on Sackville Street in Dublin for what would become the club’s inaugural meeting. According to the minute book of that meeting, the club began life under the grand title The Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland, Irish Branch. Before long it would adopt the simpler name Irish Automobile Club, and in 1919 the ‘Royal’ prefix was granted, creating the RIAC we know today.

As reminders of the earliest days, a series of photographs from the 1903 Irish Reliability Trial was kindly shared with us by club stalwart Don Larkin. They show hardy machines and determined crews departing from the club’s Dublin headquarters, setting off into the Irish countryside in what must have been part adventure and part demonstration at a time when the motor car still had much to prove. That same year Ireland would host one of the great spectacles of early motoring: the Gordon Bennett Race of 1903.

To celebrate these milestones, 2026 will see a full Irish Motoring Week. The festivities begin with the Irish Veteran and Vintage Car Club’s Gordon Bennett International Rally, marking the 50th running of that much-loved event for cars built before the end of 1930. The following weekend, the RIAC will host its own 125th anniversary celebration, centred on a recreation of the 1906 Irish Reliability Trial. Eligible vehicles will include cars and tricycles built before 1918 and early flat-tank motorcycles. The oldest participants – machines built before the end of 1906 – will form the special Reliability Trial Class.

Just like in 1906, the route echoes a shamrock-shaped journey radiating from St Stephen’s Green in Dublin. The commemorative run will start on 13 June 2026, precisely 120 years to the day and minute of the original event, heading north from the city to Dundalk. At roughly sixty miles, it should be well within the capabilities of any London-to-Brighton-eligible veteran. Anyone interested can go here for further details. In the meantime, armchair enthusiasts might just try to see what they recognise from those 1903 pictures.

Words Jeroen Booij, Pictures RIAC

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