The unlikely story of Bianconi: the enterprising Italian who developed Ireland's first proper bus service

Irish Examiner

5 days ago

'Forty years ago a person going to Dublin from the interior should make almost as much preparation as some now make for America', commented topographer Rev. G. Hansbrow in 1835.
Carlo Bianconi admitted to being 'the greatest dunce' at school. Instead of doing his homework, the boy with curly black hair preferred watching the slowly turning wheel of his father's silk-mill, and dreamed of owning 'much land' and 'many white horses'.
Born in Tregolo, near Lake Como, on September 24, 1786, at the age of 16, he was apprenticed to art dealer Andrea Faroni. Treasuring in his luggage a blue peacock feather from girlfriend, Giovanna Vandroni, he was taken with three other lads to Dublin, and lodged in Temple Bar.
Every Monday, Faroni would give him fourpence pocket money and send him out on the roads with a box (two feet long, one foot wide, eighteen inches deep, 100 pounds in weight) strapped to his back. It contained two pounds' worth of framed pictures he had to sell by Saturday, shouting 'Buy, buy!', and indicating prices on his fingers. Bianconi's ideas to improve travel 'grew out of my back', he said.
Having completed his apprenticeship in 1806, he became his own boss in Carrick-on-Suir. That's when Julia Bourke, a Kilkenny girl he'd fallen in love with, encouraged him to pursue his childhood interest in carving and gilding. Next, he moved to Waterford, before buying a shop in Clonmel (1809), with a large display window for his framed pictures and looking glasses. 'Brian Coony', as he was known, was now wealthy enough to employ three gilders.
Even though the distance by road from Carrick to Waterford to buy gold-leaf was only thirteen miles, he'd found that his journeys by boat had sometimes taken five hours.
Irish postage stamps commemorating the 200th anniversary of Charles Bianconi's birth, 1986 .png
Scotsman John Anderson had introduced a mail coach service between Ireland's main towns in 1789, but it was expensive, and didn't have a regular timetable. Stiff road taxes meant only the rich could afford their own vehicle.
Suddenly, after the Napoleonic Wars, a plentiful supply of strong horses came on the market. Bianconi bought some, and on July 6, 1815, started a one-horse, two-wheeled, six-passenger jaunting-car service between Clonmel and Cahir, a round trip of 18 miles.
But most people were suspicious of any innovation, especially of 'travelling through the world sideways', and the initiative flopped. Instead of giving up, Bianconi bought a second car and arranged races with his original. It proved a masterstroke: passengers were thrilled, cars filled up. He quickly extended the service to Tipperary, Limerick, Cashel, Thurles, and in 1816 to Waterford.
Ditching his picture business, he built a workshop and forges in Clonmel. Under the management of his assistant, Dan Hearn, a full range of vehicles was manufactured — from lightweight two-wheelers to carriages for 14 and 19 passengers. They drove voters to the Waterford election in 1826, earning Bianconi £1,000, and later secured him a Post Office contract to carry mail.
By the mid-1830s, he owned around 100 carriages and 1,400 horses — reputedly knowing them all by name. His cars covered more than 3,000 miles of road across 23 counties, with routes stretching from Strabane to Skibbereen, Galway to Wexford. Tourists could explore magnificent Bantry Bay, the Lakes of Killarney, and the wilds of Connemara. With an average speed of 8-9 mph (including stops), any journey in Ireland could be completed in eight hours. At a modest penny-farthing per mile, all but the poor could afford to travel in them.
A stickler for efficiency, Bianconi restricted horses to 16 pounds of hay a day, scanned every waybill personally, and employed spies to report on malpractices. Drivers were instructed to keep a seat vacant for any man carrying a sack or a woman with a child. Provided they were honest, they received sick pay and pensions, and were welcome to visit Bianconi at home to discuss problems while he relaxed in his bath before the fire.
A 'long Bian' (M.J. O'Connell Charles Bianconi – A Biography, 1877, facing p.134)
At 40, he had attained a 'respectable' position – indeed, the word 'Bian' had become a household name for 'bus' – and he could consider marrying. But on Valentine's Day 1827, his bride was neither Giovanna from Tregolo, nor Julia from Kilkenny, but 19-year-old Eliza Hayes, daughter of a wealthy Dublin stockbroker. There was no honeymoon – he was too busy rushing around on business.
One of Bianconi's favourite sayings was: 'money melts but land holds'. As a naturalised British subject – even though he hated drinking tea – 'Charles' could buy property. Snapping up the Old Charter School on Waterford Road, he changed its name to Silver Spring and built a pond and terrace. His many guests included Daniel O'Connell ('The Liberator'), and teetotalist Father Theobald Mathew, who'd rescued him from a street fight in Thurles as a young lad.
Immersing himself in Clonmel society, Bianconi became director of the local bank, oversaw public lighting, and as mayor (twice) he checked bakers didn't diddle customers with underweight loaves, and tried to curb drunkenness. During the Great Famine, he distributed polenta and macaroni from his house. Several schools and University College Dublin also benefited from his philanthropy.
Longfield House, Boherlahan, Co. Tipperary, bought by Bianconi in 1846 (www.buildingsofireland.ie)
In 1846, the enterprising Italian bought Longfield House, Boherlahan, for £22,000 (equivalent to £3 million today), and moved in with Eliza and their three children — Kate, Charley and Little Minnie. Set in 1,000 acres, Longfield had been his dream home since his days as a pedlar. He built an Italian garden with yew hedges, apricot trees, urns and statues from Como. Convinced it was his duty to look after tenants on his estate, he rebuilt their cottages with slate roofs. By 1860, he'd bought ten more Irish properties.
Many years before, he'd vowed to go back to Italy. He did return, alone, on the death of his father in 1833, to find that Giovanna had married a duke; and again in 1851, hoping in vain that the milder climate would heal Kate's TB. But Ireland, not Italy, was now his home.
When the railways arrived, Bianconi shocked a protest meeting of coach and canal boat owners in Dublin by announcing it was as foolish to try preventing 'railway mania' as attempting to stem the Liffey. Instead, he purchased shares in railways, tweaked his routes to feed the trains, and shifted his cars to Sligo and Galway, where no locomotive had yet reached.
However, year by year, railways crept up on him, and he realized that the future of the Bians was to provide transport to and from train stations, which they did until the motorcar.
Even in his late seventies, Bianconi continued to lead an active public life as deputy lieutenant of Tipperary. But on 7 October 1865, everything changed when his cart overturned, fracturing his thigh. Calling it a day, he sold the business to his employees, and the coach workshop was converted into Hearn's Hotel. From now on, he travelled by railway — and in a wheelchair. 'Proud of his hard-won success', he asked Minnie, his only surviving child, to write his biography.
Carlo Bianconi died on 22 September 1875, following a stroke. As he lay dying, the story goes that his horses came to fetch him. A greatly respected and popular man, his funeral procession stretched over half a mile to the family mausoleum he'd built at Longfield House.
In honour of the bicentenary of Bianconi's birth in 1986, Clonmel was twinned with Tregolo.
Via Clonmel, Tregolo, twin of Tipperary's county town
Bianconi would be dismayed to hear that the patchy state of Ireland's rural bus services is making headlines today, 150 years after his death. Wonder what solutions he'd come up with?