DJ Kelly & Co Ltd. boasts an unrivalled track record for providing high-quality commercial flooring solutions. Down through the years this exceptional third-generation family-run business has completed countless prestigious projects for a who’s who of clients, invariably delivering industry-leading workmanship and unbeatable service. Building Ireland touched base with Director David Kelly to get an update.
Since its genesis in 1954, DJ Kelly & Co Ltd. has earned an unrivalled reputation as Ireland’s leading commercial flooring specialist. Resident flooring contractors in Dublin Airport, they have successfully delivered many high-profile projects across the capital and beyond over the years, combining excellent products with exceptional workmanship to achieve professional results every time.
Founder David Kelly grew the business from humble beginnings before passing the reins on to his son, Patrick, who is the current MD. Today, Patrick is in turn joined in the running of DJ Kelly & Co by his own three sons – David (Director), Paul (Quantity Surveyor) and Patrick Jnr. (Project Manager).
Covering all aspects of flooring from hard flooring to soft flooring, timber flooring, wall and ceramic tiling, the Kellys tackle every project with tremendous focus and are renowned for professionalism and attention to detail, which has resulted in a large volume of repeat business from major clients across the commercial, residential, retail, leisure, hospitality, pharmaceutical, education and healthcare sectors.
Nowhere is the quality of DJ Kelly & Co’s workmanship more evident to the general public than at the Arrivals and Departures Halls at Dublin Airport, where the footfall is such that long-lasting and attractive solutions are a prerequisite. The company has decades of experience working on largescale projects at Dublin Airport and were engaged on various works there at the time of writing:
“We’re very busy at the Airport at the moment,” Director David Kelly confirms. “We’re on the first stage of the Baggage Hall in T1 and we’ve tiled around 70% of the toilets in T1 over the past 15 months.”
The T1 atrium car-park area has also recently been refurbished with all-new rubber flooring installed in the seated area, while the existing granite in the main area was also restored. Meanwhile, at T2, in 2019, DJ Kelly & Co supplied and installed granite flooring for a large extension to the Transfers building.
Ongoing works at Dublin Airport account for around 25% of activity, with a host of other projects undertaken across the city and the greater Leinster region. Other current projects include numerous city centre apartment blocks, while DJ Kelly & Co are also providing flooring and tiling at the new Primary Care Centre in Arklow for Esmonde Developments, having last year completed Bray Primary Care Centre for Collen Construction.
Meanwhile, again for Collen, tiling and PVC wall cladding were provided at the €325m WuXi Biologics facility in Dundalk, County Louth.
Crucially, by completing all projects to the highest standards, DJ Kelly & Co have established lasting relationships with a core group of main contractors. “A lot of our work is repeat business with a select handful of large contractors as well as several smaller ones,” David reveals. “We do a lot with Collen. We’re in Dublin Airport with Glenbeigh Construction and Flynn, and we also do a lot of office blocks and fit-outs with Glenbeigh.
“Recently, we’ve been doing a lot of rapid-build social housing and rapid-build schools with ABM Construction, while we also worked on a couple of new Guinness buildings for Hegarty last year. We’re also working with Winthrop in Sweden and Holland, with a couple of data centres also coming up in Germany.”
Due to the vital nature of the services provided, the company was considered an essential services provider during the public health shutdown of construction, thus work continued unabated. “We had 70% of the lads working throughout and we never stopped,” David confirms. “St Mary’s Hospital, Phoenix Park – where the main building was revamped – was one of the projects we were involved in during this time.”
Although tiling (floor and wall), vinyl and timber floors account for the vast majority of work, DJ Kelly & Co have the capacity to deliver any flooring solution requested, from carpet to granite and everything in between.
Depending on the exact workload at any given time, Ireland’s longest-established commercial flooring specialist generates direct employment for a team of up to 120 highly-skilled and vastly-experienced personnel, with the Kelly family themselves always on site to supervise all projects, whether large and small.
Many of their staff have been working with them for 20-30 years and the team on hand represents the backbone of the business:
“We have great lads here, who are skilled and experienced and have been very loyal to us,” David concludes. “Most people who come to work here never leave. We tend to hold onto them. We enjoy a good rapport with all the lads and, even on the rare occasion where somebody does move on, he’d usually end up coming back to work with us again as a subcontractor. Relationships are very important and we pride ourselves on building strong bonds with both our clients and our staff.”
DJ Kelly & Co Ltd.,
211 Cabra Road,
Cabra,
Dublin 7.
Tel: 01-8389860
Email: [email protected]
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, February 2022, Vol 8 No 2
