Based in Castlerea, Co Roscommon, Connaught Contractors has grown into a leader when it comes to Building & Civil Engineering in the west of Ireland. Building Ireland heard more from company Managing Director, Pat Murphy.
Quality comes first at Connaught Contractors and its been that way ever since its owner Pat Murphy started off in building & civil engineering almost a quarter of a century ago.
For Pat, continued excellence in his company’s work has been the secret to success thus far and also a key part of the reason why they’ve continued to obtain repeat business from their clients.
Indeed Connaught has earned itself a glowing reputation off the back of its work for the past decade-and-a-half in this country, with big name clientele such as Stewart Construction, JJ Rhatigan and John Sisk & Son amongst the companies they continually carry out work for.
Pat was good enough to take time from a very busy schedule recently to tell Building Ireland a bit about Connaught – from its origins to its current projects.
“We’re based on the Henry Byrne Road in Castlerea Business Park, Castlerea, Co Roscommon and I established the company almost 25 years ago when I was living in Birmingham,” he explained.
“I returned home just over 16 years ago and set up Connaught here in Ireland. At the moment Connaught employs over 60 people.”
At this point Pat stressed that the staff are his most important asset. He is very much aware of their loyalty, commitment and skills.
Many have been with him from the very start. A mutual respect between them is a recipe for success.
“Basically, what we do is provide demolition, ground works, civils and formwork. We generally go in and carry out all aspects of the Contract mostly up to the DPC level,” he said.
“When doing all of the formwork, ground work and demo, there is more control as one company doing all three rather than having three different contractors on site.” Our ‘can do’ attitude means that we aspire to deliver all of our projects on time, on budget and to a high quality.
It seems that Connaught offers the full package when it comes to building & civil engineering and the quality of their work can be attributed to the rise of Pat’s venture.
The man himself will tell you that his initial career choice wasn’t one in building & civil engineering.
In fact, it wasn’t until he moved over across the Channel and settled in for a couple of years that he took the decision to pursue a different path and it was one that led him towards a company which now – almost 25 years later – is very much a success story, employing over 60 staff from its base in Castlerea.
“I was a shuttering carpenter by trade and worked at that in England after moving there when I was 16,” Pat outlined.
“Years later, I set-up Connaught in the UK with my long term friend and work partner Tommy Connolly, we got things going and then decided to go our separate ways, Tommy went on to set up ‘Conform’, a formwork company while I continued with Connaught and concentrated on groundworks and Civils over there.
“In 2002 I moved back to Ireland, initially building houses before teaming up with Stewarts on civil works.”
Not one to boast, Pat prefers to say that business has been “quite good” as of late, rather than booming, and the hope is to keep things that way headed towards the second half of 2019.
Our workbook is pretty full. We have a list of projects on at the moment Including 2 schools in Athenry, The Dean Hotel on Prospect Hill, Knocknacarra Developmet Centre, Boston Scientific Expansion to name some of the larger contracts. I suppose our core thing is that we always endeavour to work within our targets,” the Managing Director stated.
He continued: “It’s all go on the jobs in Athenry. “They’re both schools for JJ Rhatigans – one is the Athenry Presentation College on the outskirts of the town and the other is a larger tech college school just across from it for 1,100 pupils where everything is going according to script in the early stage.
“We’ve also got on-going work for Sisk at Boston Scientific, Galway.”
It seems the work load at the moment at Connaught is certainly a heavy one, but it’s nothing that they can’t handle out in Castlerea.
On the machinery front, Pat owns some impressive plant and equipment.
“We are continually trying to keep Machinery updated to make sure that projects are a success both timely and efficiently.”
The company recently invested in a handful of new machines in order to meet with the demand, and that has been the case, so far, so good.
“We have recently purchased some new Komatsu and Caterpillar machines and they have been put to work immediately on site, we also run Doosans and Volvo,” he said.
“They’re all good machines and we have everything from 2-tonne up to 25-tonne. We try to use our local supplier where possible. Most of the machinery comes from Pat Gaynor & Sons, McHale Plant and EMS Machinery. With Scania Trucks purchased from Westward Scania.
“We are able to offer a speedy and trusted response to our clients’ needs and we believe we are the Contractor of choice when an unforeseen problem occurs.”
All the right tools are there for the client so therefore it’s no surprise to see Connaught being as busy as it has ever been since opening its doors in Pat’s native Castlerea in 2002.
Pat is involved at every stage of his business, from pricing, co-ordinating, on site meetings and measures, he very much has his finger on the pulse and knows exactly whats going on. The plan for Connaughts future is to keep things very much as they are as business continues to steadily grow year on year.
It all comes down to a continued transparent, honest and professional relationship with the client and to work with them, a good relationship with employees who are the backbone of every company according to the man himself.
“We’ve always built a good relationship with the Main Contractor, mutual honesty and respect and we continue to do so moving forward. We are doing repeat business with all of them for years now and we’re happy to say that is the success of making it work both ways,” he concluded.
Connaught Contractors Ltd
Connaught House,
Castlerea Business Park,
Henry Byrne Road,
Castlerea,
Co Roscommon
F45 RW29
Tel: 094 9622 007
Fax: 094 9622 008
Taken from Building Ireland Magazine, March/April, Vol 5 No 3
