Ford Motor boss inducted into Irish Hall of Fame

THE executive chairman of Ford Motor Company, William
Clay Ford Jr, was inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame and received a
Certificate of Irish Heritage from Ireland’s Consul General in the US, Noel
Kilkenny recently.

The ceremony took place at a gala lunch hosted by
Irish America magazine at the Metropolitan Club in New York.

As part of the ceremony, Mr Ford was presented with an
Irish crystal plate marking his induction into the Hall of Fame by Sean Reidy,
Director of the Dunbrody Emigration History Centre.

Speaking of his family’s Irish heritage, Mr Ford said:

“It’s something our family has been very proud of, and something we’re acutely
aware of.

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Mr Ford is the great grandson of Ford Motor Company
founder, Henry Ford.

Henry’s father, William, emigrated with his family to
America from Ballinascarty in Co Cork during the Famine in 1847. They settled
in Michigan and Henry was born in 1863.
Henry Ford established the Ford Motor Company in 1903 and in 1917 he
returned to his ancestral home of Cork to establish Henry Ford & Son
Limited.

Several of Henry Ford’s descendants have paid visits
to the family homestead in Ballinascarty in the past decades. Last year, William
Clay Ford Jr and his family visited Ballinascarty for the first time and
unveiled a plaque commemorating their family’s connection with the village.

The Ford Motor Company now employs 163,000 people and
sells over five million vehicles annually across the globe. The Irish operation
is the only Ford business in the world to bear the name of the company’s
founder.

Mr Ford joins a famous group of people with Irish
heritage who have already been inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame
including President William J Clinton, Maureen O’Hara, Jean Kennedy Smith,
Michael Flatley, Mary Higgins Clark, Donald Keough, and William J Flynn, among
others.