Leprechauns at play
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The Little People, it seems, meddle even in the registration of a company name in the Irish Republic. Peter Thomas, a director of Hydro Hoist Ltd, the new joint EdbroThompson tipping-gear venture in Eire, let the leprechaun out of the bag at the opening of the factory at Carlow.
He explained that as the prime market for the company's new range of underbody tipping gear was to be the USA, it was thought desirable to use the native word "hoist" in the title. "Hydra" was added to indicate hydraulic power and the convolutions of registering the name began. In the process Hydra somehow became Hydra became Hydro, which is perhaps just as well.
Hydra was, of course, the many-headed Greek monster. As fast as a head was cut off another grew unless the wound was cauterised at once.
This might imply that the tipping gear was almost indestructible but Dr Annandale, in his excellent dictionary, adds: "Hence, evil or misfortune arising from many sources and not easily to be surmounted." This, I suspect, was not really the impression that Hydro Hoist wished to create.
Any possible evil was, however, exorcised by the ecumenical blessing of the factory by local representatives of the Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland, so customers of either persuasion may buy the goods with confidence.