The first motor car in Newmarket was purchased in 1906 by Lucius O'Brien of Dromoland (15th Baron Inchiquin), seen here with his family Donough, Beryl, Ethel and Phaedrig. The car was a De Dion-Bouton, made by a French company that had been making automobiles since the invention

of the new technology. Indeed their earliest models were powered by steam engine but by the early 1900s they had switched to internal combustion and were the biggest manufacturers in the world.
Ten years later, cars were still a fairly rare commodity and in Easter 1916, only one

of the rebel leaders owned one, The O'Rahilly. It was the same make as Lucius O'Brien's. O'Rahilly spent Easter Saturday/Sunday driving it around the country calling off the Rising (those were the orders, subsequently rescinded). On returning to Dublin, he found the Rising was

indeed going ahead so he drove in to the GPO. The car would later be wrecked and form part of the barricade on Princes St. In June, his widow received a letter from Dublin Castle informing her that she could have what remained of it back on payment of a 30 shilling fine...
As to

the car of Lucius O'Brien, it too had an interesting afterlife as it was commandeered by rebel forces during the War of Independence. Who exactly had it over the next few years is unknown but eventually it was scrapped in 1926 and Lucius received a cheque from the Irish Free

State to compensate him. There was only one definite sighting of it during the war years when a Dromoland employee saw it in Ennis, in 1922. Behind the wheel was none other than Eamon de Valera.