Cunningham Civil and Marine Ltd is a privately-owned family run business run by Eoghan and Danielle Cunningham in Westport, Co. Mayo that is quickly establishing a name for itself as a company that can be trusted upon to deliver quality workmanship.
Headquartered in Westport, County Mayo, they offer many services. At the heart of the business is specialised marine projects which have included coastal and storm erosion projects on neighbouring islands, dredging and adapting piers and quay walls.
They also offer services in all types of civil projects with design and build options. They operate a sophisticated wet and dry batch mobile concrete batching plants for off shore works. In addition to a wide other range of services they also operate a fully operational licensed landfill facility that can accept all types of construction waste and bitimous material in the Connacht region.
In addition, they offer a full range of groundworks and plant hire services. Their extensive fleet ranges from tipper trucks, grab wagons, excavators both wheeled and tracked from .5 ton to 35 ton with or without rock breakers. They also have in their fleet a range of articulated trucks, a road suction sweeper, tracked bulldozer, dump trucks, site dumpers, concrete pumps and telescopic handlers. They can also offer crane hire both tracked and wheeled. The fleet is managed by a fully licenced transport manager and all trucks have an up to date road haulage licence.
Cunningham Civil and Marine pride themselves on being a one stop shop and recently have been making inroads in the marine sector.
This progressive company has carried out extensive work on neighbouring islands and coasts and more recently on Kish Bank Lighthouse which is located 15km off the coast of Dun Laoghaire.
“Marine construction is a very specialised field and we have the equipment, experience and expertise to carry out all types of marine work on and off shore,” Eoghan Cunningham explained. “Back in 2006 we started with marine projects, our first being a slipway improvement at Inish Lyre just off Rosmoney in Westport, Co. Mayo, it followed on with works at Clare Island, Inish Turk and the Inishskea Islands all contracted by Mayo County Council and it grew from there.”
Cunningham Civil and Marine’s work on the various west coast islands has included slipway construction, barrier repair work, pier construction, bridge construction and storm erosion repair work.
Specialising in Civil and Marine Construction means their work involves operating in areas where access may be limited such as islands and lighthouses. They have carried out extensive work along the coast of Ireland and out to sea in neighbouring islands and have a highly skilled team who can navigate the most challenging obstacles and conditions.
The company’s growing project portfolio includes the Bundorragha Pier construction in 2015, groundworks and concrete works on Cape Clear Island, Co Cork 2015/2016 and ground excavations, steel tying and labouring in 2017 to an extension at Dublin Port on behalf of L&M Keating Ltd. The latter project included lengthening the berth and deepening the navigation channel to allow for bigger vessels to enter the port.
Another job that Eoghan Cunningham is particularly proud of is the aforementioned refurbishment work that Cunningham Civil and Marine Ltd carried out on Kish Bank lighthouse on behalf of the Commissioner for Irish from July 2018 to November 2018.
This was a big operation as the logistics involved all equipment and personnel to be transported by water to Kish Bank Lighthouse. The works included a full refurbishment of the outside of the lighthouse which involved lengthy power washing, treating and painting the exterior. The existing helipad outer frame was dismantled and a new outer frame was designed, fabricated in steel and fitted.
The work to the helipad had to be completed at a height of 30m, with all steel having to be lifted by a specialised crane to the top of the helipad.
“We had a great team on board from our foreman Frank Coyne to our team of fabricators, welders and general labourers,” Eoghan commented. “During the job we engaged the services of O’Malley Marine Plant Ltd’s landing craft ‘The James’, owned and operated by Charles and Gerard O’Malley from Clare Island. The landing craft was essential to the logistics of the project.”
Eoghan places safety at the core of his business. The company earned a Safe-T-Cert in March 2017 and renewed it in 2018 in which they received an ‘A Rating’ with an IOSH letter of recommendation. They have an approved in-house safety management system that is over seen by their consultant Sarah O Halloran from OHS.
They provide regular training programmes both internally and externally to their team to ensure that all staff are kept up to date with health and safety legislation and best practice and to ensure that all staff are safety compliant.
“We have recently obtained our ISO 9001 certification which is something we are very proud of,” Eoghan remarked.
“The safety of our employees is paramount to us and, luckily, we have had no minor accident, never mind a major one, to date. The Kish Bank Lighthouse job was a big undertaking which involved a lot of ropes and wires and, thankfully, we had a zero incident accident rate.”
Eoghan’s background is in in ready mix concrete and plant hire from which he established Eoghans Mini Mix back in 2000.
At Eoghan’s Mini Mix we supply all grades of ready mix concrete and ready mix mortar in addition to supplying bagged aggregate, blocks, stone, sand and gravel. Our fleet ranges from 0 to 4 cubic metres in size. Reduced size of our vehicles means we can deliver to locations with restricted access and to niche projects, both on and off shore over the past number of years.
“Business is going very well and we have built up very good relationships with our valued clients,” Eoghan revealed. “There are going to challenges in 2019 with Brexit. There are a lot of decisions that need to be made but people are holding off on them at the minute until they see what way that pans out. That said, we are tendering away for jobs all the time so I’d be very hopeful about the future.”
So why choose Cunningham Civil and Marine? Simply put, they have the expertise, knowledge and skillset to carry out the most complex of projects. They put safety and best practice at the core of their business to ensure a safe working environment with first class expertise. They have a dedicated project management team who will work with you to ensure smooth delivery with minimum disruption.
Cunningham Civil and Marine
Westport
Co Mayo
Tel: +353 98 25050
Mob: +353 87 917 2271
Web: www.cunninghamcivilandmarine.ie
Taken from Building Ireland Magazine, February 2019, Vol 5 No 2
