Just across the bay from the historic town of Cobh, the last port of call for the Titanic in 1912 on her ill-fated maiden voyage, lies the source of some of the world’s biggest life-savers and givers.
Sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra, medicinal compounds for the treatment of cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, Crohn’s and Parkinson’s disease, all are manufactured within two miles of the deep port of Ringaskiddy in County Cork.
On the main road from Ringaskiddy to Carrigaline, on the back road to Curraghbinny, or down towards the white beaches of Lough Beg, the mammoth windowless plants of Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and their private wind turbines are the main attractions.
After more than 50 years, however, it is all under threat after Donald Trump accused Ireland of stealing America’s pharmaceutical industry and vowed to “force” US companies, jobs and taxes to return home.
On Tuesday night, he renewed the threat, promising a “major tariff” that would send the pharma industry “rushing back” to the US, sending stocks of those US companies in Ireland, across Europe and India down.
This has concentrated the minds of local politicians, who have called on the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, to visit the area. She met pharmaceutical companies in Brussels on Tuesday to hear that tariffs could “expedite” a shift to the US.
“If Pfizer and the others closed … the collateral damage would be huge,” said John Twomey, something of a local historian and treasurer of the local Gaelic Athletic Association in Shanbally, a tiny village a two-minute drive from Pfizer’s entrance.
“Half the place would be blown to bits, all the workers, the subcontractors, from the guys supplying the toilet rolls, to the farms supplying meat for the canteens.”
According to the Industrial Development Agency, 21,500 people are employed in Ringaskiddy and the surrounding east Cork towns in pharma and biomedicines, with thousands more indirect jobs.
“People with ordinary backgrounds have been given extraordinary prospects,” said Jack White, a local Fine Gael councillor.
“People are worried because we have had such a huge dependency on pharma for employment in this area for generations.
“People have pinned their lives and their financial planning on jobs not just in pharma but in secondary industries. There are construction and scaffolding industries that have a permanent presence on sites like Pfizer, because their sites are constantly expanding or tinkered with.”
The industry itself has remained silent since Trump announced he was targeting pharma in Ireland for tariffs. The routine sensitivity of the high-value sector, with its secrecy around patented medicines, is reflected in the lack of branding on the buildings.
White said the communications would have to change in the face of one of the biggest challenges to a sector critical not only to Ireland but to all of Europe’s economies.
He said he was contacting von der Leyen, and the European Commission trade commissioner, Maroš Šefčovič, to ask them to visit the area to see it for themselves.
This is something Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier did several times when the dairy industry on the Northern Ireland border was caught in the crosshairs.
“The success the Industrial Development Agency has shown on the global stage to attract foreign investors has been phenomenal,” said White. “But we now need that in government. I’m also advocating for a taskforce to be set up to represent the wider Ringaskiddy area, such is its importance nationally.”
The area certainly does not lack political heft. The former deputy prime minister Simon Coveney, for whom White worked, is a former neighbour in Carrigaline, while the current European commissioner, Michael McGrath, lives up the road.
The taoiseach, Micheál Martin, whom Trump recently flattered and threatened in a meeting in the Oval Office, also comes from Cork.
While US big tech usually dominates the headlines when it comes to Ireland’s extraordinary success at attracting investment, it is pharma that drives its export surplus with the US.
Of the €73.2bn of goods exported in 2024, €44.4bn came from pharma, with the commensurate profits booked and tax paid in Ireland contributing to the country’s bumper €28bn corporate tax take – something the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, called a “tax scam”.
“There is an axe hanging over all of us and Carrigaline would not be the town it is without pharma,” said David Collins, fifth generation owner of the local supermarket. “If anything happened to this area it would decimate us, not just financially but socially. It’s not just about the money. Anything that will endanger the viability of the town needs to get more attention.”
Now 79, Twomey said the transformation he had seen in the small rural area over 50 years had been “mind-boggling”.
He recalled the day a US delegation pulled up in his home village of Shanbally after it had been earmarked for development, with Pfizer first in the queue. They knocked down an old manor house with 52 windows to make way for the Viagra maker, he said.
“It was huge news. I remember there was a horse and cart tied up outside the pub.” He said three limousines pulled up and Jack Lynch stepped out of one of them. “There was no road there, just a gate to the avenue up to the big house.”
That road is regularly on the national news as one of the most congested in the country, as workers file into shifts from 6 o’clock in the morning, with a €450m 14km motorway to Cork city still under construction.
Back then, the population of Carrigaline was just under 800, with fishing, farming and the Irish navy the main sources of employment.
The area is now home to nine large pharma and medical device manufacturers, including Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, with two plants and its Janssen and DePuy offshoots, Thermo Fisher (formerly GlaxoSmithKline), Sterling (formerly Novartis), Hovione, Recordati and BioMarin. Along with many others, including Eli Lilly and Gilead a short drive away in Kinsale and Carrigtwohill, Cork is home to 33 life science employers.
“The wages they were offering were phenomenal,” said Twomey. “There were farmers, carpenters, even silversmiths on the production line. Pfizer was so big it even had its own jetty.”
It has since added a gym and a golf club for staff. The town has a population close to 20,000, with several new schools, more than 100 clubs and associations and three-bedroom houses selling for more than €400,000, some of the most expensive in rural Ireland.
“We can’t remember a time without pharma here, but Trump doesn’t like Europe. He likes Ireland but do you think he will listen to us?” said Jennifer Daly, a retiree, enjoying a round of golf at the course opened by Pfizer.
As workers file out to take a lunchtime stroll at the golf course, they talk of the “uncertainty” hanging in the air. “But can’t talk,” said one. “We’d lose our jobs.”
While Trump has singled out Ireland for “luring away” US pharma, most believe any hostile move by the US president would more likely shift investment over time rather than force an overnight exodus of US companies.
For a start, the investments and timelines are big. Pfizer, which declined to comment, has invested $7bn in three plants in Ireland since the 1960s, according to its website, with $1.2bn earmarked for an expansion in Dublin, which is not due for completion until 2027.
One businessman who works in Carrigaline said local factories were working on goals “for 2027 and 2028”. BioMarin had a sign outside its entrance referring to something completing in Q1 2027, underlining his point.
“I don’t think they are going anywhere. If Trump does try to pull the plug, he is going to get a call from the bosses of people here. There is billions put into these places, absolutely huge amounts of training, the equipment. It takes 10 years to set this up and people are still building and expanding here. So it will take 10 years to replicate that in the US, and Trump will be long gone by then,” he said.
• This article was amended on 9 April 2025. The estimated cost of the 14km motorway under construction near Cork is €450m, not “€450bn” as an earlier version said.
