Eimar McCormick: Hugh Eimar McCormick, who has died after a short illness aged 85, was the managing director of John G. Rathborne Ltd, candle-manufacturer, for 27 years from 1947.
Rathborne's, one of the oldest firms in Europe, was established in 1488, four years before Columbus discovered America.
Born in Derry, reared in Greencastle, Co Donegal,and educated in St Columb's College, Eimar studied at the College of Aeronautical Engineering, Chelsea, from 1937 to 1939, from which he enlisted as a flight engineer at the outbreak of the second World War. Soon afterwards, tuberculosis struck, and it was four years before he was fit enough to obtain employment with James Mackie & Sons, Belfast.
He then joined Rathborne's as works manager in 1945, married Olive O'Gorman from Dublin in 1947 and became managing director in the same year, a position he held until 1974.
Nicknamed "High Explosive" by Rathborne's staff because of his sheer dynamism, H. E. McCormick set about reinvigorating a moribund company, consisting of 12 office staff and eight factory workers, that had languished throughout the war years.
Despite the recession of the 1950s and the risk of rural electrification making candles irrelevant, the company expanded against all the odds, and by the early 1960s there were 125 people employed at the East Wall Road factory, making household, church and festive candles.
Under his direction electric light, despite its advantages, never fully succeeded in supplanting the softer, more relaxing light from candles.
Travelling constantly throughout Europe, the US and Canada, he built up invaluable contacts with the Irish diaspora and foreign clients, which enabled Rathborne's to expand during the more optimistic 1960s when novelty candles shaped as rugby balls and Irish coffees became increasingly popular.
Many will remember the publicity surrounding the lighting of giant Rathborne's nine-foot An Tóstal candles outside the Mansion House in the 1950s by the lord mayor of Dublin at Christmas.
Eimar McCormick was one of the new generation of visionary postwar Irish businessmen who put Ireland on the economic map by a combination of imaginative flair, personalised salesmanship and selfless hard work.
He negotiated a merger with another respected Dublin candle-manufacturing company, Lalor Ltd of Ormond Quay. He was considered an authority on the history of the industry and, as a renowned raconteur, never missed an opportunity to promote Rathborne's and Ireland at speaking engagements worldwide.
In 1976, finding retirement irksome, he joined the expanding First National Building Society as branch manager in Blanchardstown until he finally retired for the second time, aged 69. His wife, Olive, died in 2002, and he is survived by his four children, Richard, Mary John and Hugh.
Eimar McCormick: born January 16th, 1918; died December 3rd, 2003