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KERRY Group Commemorative Sundial


The KERRY Group, a world leader in Taste and Nutrition serving the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries, is a leading supplier of added value brands and customer branded foods to international markets. With 24,000 employees around the world and annual revenue of over €5.8bn, KERRY is one of Ireland's most successful companies.

Following completion of its new Global Technology & Innovation Centre in Naas, County Kildare, KERRY wanted a permanent on-site memento involving all the colleagues who would be moving to the building. The brief was to bring together KERRY's people, science, technology and heritage into one memorable piece. The concept for the piece came from Sue Lamon-Diver who represented KERRY, but it was ultimately brought to life by InnerWorkings, a local design company, with a global presence. Emerson Palmer, their Managing Director, suggested the idea of a sundial as a perfect representation of all of the key elements that make KERRY the company it is today and then went on to manage the entire project. Sundial maker Cormac Lalor, a County Kildare native, now of Cork was appointed to undertake the sundial design and project drafting.


Sundial at the Centre

KERRY Group Sundial

The sundial is a conventional horizontal dial, set for Mean Time by incorporating a longitude correction to the hour line layout. The gnomon is 100 mm thick and has a vertical height of 2 metres. The chapter ring is 500mm wide and has an outside diameter of 4.68 metres, and the overall project has a diameter is 6.68 metres. At the noonpoint on the dial face, carved in relief within a rectangular box, is the company logo"KERRY".

<U>Kerry</U> Group Logo

KERRY Group Logo


Irish Summer Time (UTC+1), is indicated by large Roman numerals on the outside of the 500 mm wide chapter ring. Smaller Arabic numerals on the inside indicate Winter Time when our clocks are set one hour 'back'. There are hour (from 4a.m. to 8p.m.) half hour, quarter hour and five minute divisions on the dial. There are two mottos engraved on the sundial to celebrate the company's innovative and forward-looking ethos while never forgetting that its heritage or that its people are ultimately its strength: "CONNECTING PAST HISTORY AND AMBITION FOR THE FUTURE" and a further inscription in Irish "NÍ NEART GO CUR LE CHÉILE", (There is no strength without unity).

It took six weeks to make the six hundred terracotta tiles of the handprints of all KERRY colleagues in Naas, between cutting the clay, getting the prints, firing and cooling. The plates, of varying dimensions to fit each of the sundial's surrounding rings, were ingeniously transported on the trays of a bread van from County Kildare to County Clare for glazing and firing and returned the same way for incorporation into the sundial on site. Once completed, they were laid in concentric rings enclosing the Valentia slate chapter ring, to celebrate the company's heritage and humble beginnings in the South West of Ireland.


<U>KERRY</U> Dial Mottos

KERRY Dial Mottos



The Sundial Project Committee were :-
       Artwork concept and photos: Sue Lamon-Diver,who represented KERRY
       Project management: Emerson Palmer , of InnerWorkings, Sallins.
       Project drafting and sundial design: Cormac Lalor , Co Kildare native, now of Cork.
      Terracotta plates: Hannah Arnup and John Egan , husband and wife team of Ballymorris Pottery in Co Clare.
      Sundial slate components: Quarried and honed by Valentia Slate Ltd, on Valentia Island, Co Kerry, under the direction of Michael Lyne and Pat O'Driscoll.
      Chapter ring (16 segments) : Engraved by French sculptor Alain Gargam , Midleton, Co Cork.
      True North established by: Murphy Surveys Ltd of Kilcullen, Co. Kildare
      Sundial mosaic: Laid by Tim Kruger Tiling Service and his German+Polish team from Portarlington, Co. Laois.


The €100m. building was officially opened by Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Enda Kenny TD, on 1st Oct. 2015.

The KERRY Group Global Technology and Innovation Centre is located west of Naas, Co. Kildare, in the Millennium Park off the M7 motorway between junctions 9 and 10.

Lat 53° 14' North  

Long 6° 40' West

Irish Grid   N  288720   221500



If you know the location of a sundial in Ireland (NOT a mass produced DIY Store garden ornament) please email it to me (Click here to email M.J.Harley) - a member of British Sundial Society
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