Corkonian, JP Frost was a very active participant in both motorcycling and sailing circles in the period 1915 to 1950.
We are indebted to Robert O’ Riordan, great-grandson of JP Frost, for giving us access to his great-grandfather’s scrapbook and family photos and for allowing us to publish the motoring content of the scrapbook on the Club Website.
Perusing the photos we were astonished to see that during the 1930’s JP and his wife toured in both Switzerland and Egypt in their Bullnose Morris.
As you will see from the extracts, JP Frost was an officer of the Cork and District Motor Cycle Club, the precursor of our Club and it is an honour that we now have both his motoring notes and the Palmer Trophy.
One can only marvel at the dedication and enthusiasm of those intrepid and hardy motorcyclists who went in search of the ‘roads’ that, even today, we look forward to traversing, e.g. Priest’s Leap, Fuhiry, Healy Pass.
As a historical snapshot of Ireland in the early 1900’s, it’s interesting to note that there was a Motorcycle Trial held on Easter Weekend 1916 and that in 1919 the RIC were thanked for their help on the Easter Monday Reliability Trial. Motorsport enthusiasts will also, no doubt, be interested in the early history of the Cork 20 Rally.
We hope that you enjoy the following pages and we once again thank Robert for granting us access.
Frost scrapbook 1915 – 1930 is available here.
Club gallery available here.
